RTSC Gala Reports

Eleana Sheridan - British Championships 2010 - Sheffield

Congratulations to Elena Sheridan who swam at the British Championships in Sheffield last weekend. Despite carrying a shoulder injury and unable to properly train for three weeks she managed a PB time of 2:20.23 in her favoured 200m Butterfly event. The event had the cream of British swimmers in attendance all competing for selection to their home country Commonwealth Games teams later in the year in India. The 'trials' were also particularly important for the 94/95 year born girls who, alongside the older 92/93 born boys, were attempting to secure places on the Great Britain team for the European Junior Championships (EJC) to be held in Helsinki in the summer.

Although clearly affected by the lack of training in recent weeks, Elena managed to swim a gutsy race to place 19th overall and was 2nd in the important 94/95 age group. Her final 50m split of 35.74 seconds was remarkable being 5th fastest of the 39 swimmer field indicating that she was perhaps a little stronger and fitter than she realised. With only 1st place guaranteed automatic selection she narrowly missed out on a guaranteed place on the EJC GB Team. Although there was a slim chance of being selected for any remaining places, the mixed team is capped to only 38 representatives in total. Elena’s performance unfortunately ranked her 51st in line for a place.

The event was eventually won by 18 year old Ellen Gandy, the current British record holder, in a time of 2:07.70. Congratulations to Elena for a performance that improves her overall British ranking and placed her in the Top 20 Ladies 200m Butterfly swimmers in Britain.

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