Kate stars in county finals as Berkhamsted SC swimmers impress

Having been involved in just about every race throughout the three weekends, she swam the 400m individual medley and, seeded second overall, proceeded to destroy the rest of the field with an emphatic display.

On the fly leg she turned after 100m in third place but excellently paced. Down the fifth length on backstroke she eased into second place and started to hunt down the leader, reaching the halfway point just 0.65 seconds behind in silver medal position.

On the breaststroke leg she turned the screw and turned that slight deficit into a six second advantage which she held easily all the way to the finish to take the Championship gold in 5:19.72 - an eight second improvement on her own PB and smashing the club record at the same time.

Two heats earlier Nell Coster had also swum to an even greater margin of victory in winning her heat by over eight seconds and reducing her own best time by the same eight seconds, touching home in 5:54.97 for a fifth in the 15 years age group.

In the same session, nine-year-old Dewi Fordyce had experienced his first County swim in the 50m breaststroke, competing in the 10/11 age band (age as at the end of the year) and chopped a huge margin of 2.5 seconds from his best in just the two lengths, clocking 48.55 to place ninth overall and miss the final by just one place.

With another year in this age group he will hope to make that final next year having been the top ten-year-old at this champs in the 50m breast.

Both Kate and Nell had also competed in the 50m backstroke before their 400 IMs and went on to race the 200m IM as well, all in the same session.

In the backstroke, Nell went 35.97 to improve her PB by 0.4 seconds and claim 19th overall while Kate was also inside her previous best in 33.23 for 11th overall.

In the shorter Medley race, Nell tired towards the end having attacked the race on her favourite fly 50m leg, finishing fifth in 2:51.34.

Meanwhile, Kate evidenced her endurance yet again coming home in yet another PB time of 2:32.19 to make the final in seventh place where, just 30 minutes after her 400m IM triumph, she was still able to maintain her seventh place in 2:34.60, clawing back a place in an epic last 25m freestyle finish.

On the Saturday, Hopper had competed alongside Mia Monksmith (10/11) in her first County Champs swim and Valeria Antonini in the 50m breast.

Mia was able to shave just over a second from her pre-Champs best, showing no fears, with 48.87 and 11th in the age group.

Valeria made her first final as eighth seed with 41.30 after a very steady first length. In the final she sped up the first 25m and went PB at the end in 40.85 to consolidate eighth place as she builds into her competitive career.

Kate also set a new PB in her heat with 36.48, again nearly a second faster than she has ever been before for 12th in the 16 & over category. She then followed this up with an excellent 4:50.40 in the 400m free for 12th, more than four seconds faster than her pb going into the championships.

The second session on the Saturday saw Coster and Hopper in action once more in the 200m free and, once again, both smashed their personal bests by four seconds for Coster (2:26.88) and three seconds for Hopper (2:15.87) placing 14th and sixth respectively in their age groups.

Then, to put the icing on the cake, Kate was placed fifth overall in the 16 & Over age group in her first year in the Category. This was a fantastic result for the youngster who only really started competing in 2020 just before the Covid pandemic hit and put a stop to racing.