Devon County Championships: Third Weekend

The 2016 Devon County Championships ended, as they began, with a deluge of medals, PBs and regional qualifying times for Exeter swimmers.

Warren Barrett

The focus was on butterfly, which provided events over 50m and 100m. At the shorter distance, Warren Barrett won the super final, while the age groups saw silver for Enzo Robertson-Moro (11) and bronze for Keely Ware (10), Katie Townsend (16+) and Alec White (15). In 100m fly, Liam White and Tom Downs qualified for the super final, finishing 4th and 5th respectively, and Aliyah-Mai Webb finished 6th in her super final. Keely Ware and Charlotte Emery (13) took gold in their age groups, with Luca Riezzo (12) in silver.

The sprinters came out for the 50m freestyle. Jolie Sellek (11) surprised the middle lanes by winning her race. She was joined in gold by Katie Townsend (16+), and Milly Kendall (13) claimed bronze. Will Amey qualified for the super final, finishing 7th.

The 100m IM may be rarely swum, but Exeter swimmers showed their dominance with four gold medalists: Enzo Robertson-Moro, Olivia Burrow (14), Katie Townsend (16+), and Aliyah-Mai Webb (super final). Liam White finished second in his super final, and joining him with silver were Alec White (15), James Wamsley (16+), Keely Ware and Charlotte Emery; Luca Riezzo took bronze.

In the 100m breaststroke there was a convincing win for Alec White, with silvers for Keely Ware, Charlotte Emery and Liam Jordan (12). Ollie Palmer won bronze, and in the super final James  Wamsley finished a strong 4th.



Aliyah, Olivia, Emily, Rhiannon, Katie

The only middle-distance event of the weekend was 200m backstroke. Fittingly for Liam Tancock's first club, backstroke had already proven an Exeter specialism in previous weekends. This event continued the trend, with five of the eight swimmers in the women's super final from Exeter: Aliyah-Mai Webb came 2nd, closely followed by Olivia Burrow (3rd, and junior champion), Emily Eveling (4th), Rhiannon Loveman (7th) and Katie Townsend (8th). Amelia Ashelford (13) won her final by a country mile and Katya Zossimova (16+) finished with silver. Among the men, Liam White took bronze in his super final, as did Archie Tyers (12) in his age-group.

Actually, that wasn't quite the end. The long distance events still offer the promise of more medals for a dozen dauntless Exeter swimmers. But the results to date speak for themselves. Unlike several other clubs who prepared specifically for the county championships, Exeter swam through them with no reduction in training intensity; most of the senior swimmers, and many juniors, proved their commitment with a two-hour training session on Sunday morning before the races. Extremely impressive though the results have been, the training plan indicates that there is even better to come.

Thank you to coaches and volunteers, and congratulations to all our swimmers on a superb performance!


Olivia Burrow: 200m backstroke junior champion