RTSC Gala Reports

Friday 22nd to Sunday 23rd January - Championnats Internationaux de Genève - Geneva, Switzerland

14 years old Elena Sheridan was Romford Town Swimming Clubs sole representative in the select London Region Youth Team competing at this weekend’s three day International competition in Geneva. Swimming a year out of age in a 14/15 years junior category, she took on a tough race schedule made even more challenging by heats and finals for each of her age group events.

Friday started with strong swims in the 100 metres Butterfly and 400 metres IM which saw her qualify comfortably to the evening finals. A time of 1min 05.73secs in the butterfly was just outside of her best, and just outside of the medals, but proved ideal preparation for the IM. In this final she smashed her previous best by more than five seconds to snatch the gold with a time of 5mins 08.13secs.

Her 200 metres Breaststroke and 200 metres Butterfly events followed closely on Saturday morning and Sheridan was again up to her best as she qualified to the Breaststroke final with some to spare, before taking pole position for her main event, the butterfly. Despite the finals being so close together, she did not hold back on the Breaststroke as she finished 5th with a PB time of 2mins 50.30secs. Within fifteen minutes she had bagged her second title of the weekend in the 200 metres Butterfly with a winning time of 2mins 21.10secs, more than three seconds ahead of her nearest rival.

On the final day Sheridan did well to again qualify to two finals on her least favoured 200 metres IM and 100 metres Breaststroke events were she finished in respective 6th and 5th places. Just for good measure she set a Breaststroke PB time of 1min 20.86secs.

Great swimming, Elena