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Newbury start the new year in style




And thank new club president for 60 years of dedication

The winners from this year's presentation evening
The winners from this year's presentation evening

It's been a busy few weeks for swimmers in Newbury as they celebrated last season’s successes, while also diving straight into this year’s competitions.

The first weekend of the Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire ASA County Championships saw a ‘magnificent seven’ from Newbury District Swimming Club crowned county champions.

Across the opening two days of competition, held at Wycombe Leisure Centre, swimmers from the club picked up a total of 17 medals, with nine others reaching the finals in their events.

Newbury picked up seven medals on day one, including gold for Jamie Leach (200m Breaststroke and 400m Freestyle), Can Tugcetin (200m Breaststroke) and Kaleb Fox-Jones (100m Backstroke).

There were also silvers for Chris Emberlin (100 Backstroke), Livvy Bevan (50 Freestyle) and Leach (50 Butterfly).
The second day was even better, with a total of 10 medals.

Leach (200 IM and 100 Breaststroke) and Fox-Jones (50 Backstroke) added more gold medals and county champions titles to their list, with Tugcetin (100 Breaststroke), Charlotte Brown, Eloise Wade (both 50 Breaststroke) and Kostia Riabya (50 Backstroke) all winning silver medals. Wade also won the silver medal in the Junior Championship for the 50 breaststroke.
Bronze medals went to Georgia Humphreys, Freya Barlow (both 200 Backstroke) and Emberlin (50 Backstroke).

Other finalists, making the top eight, were Wade, Barlow and Izzy Fox (all 100 Butterfly), along with Riabya (100 Backstroke), Luke Brandon (50 and 100 Backstroke), Bevan (100 Freestyle, 50 Breaststroke), and Bethan Delaney and Vivien Wallis (both 50 Breaststroke).

Giselle Bruce, Kirsten Fraser, Alice Peters, Elspeth Crane, Rosie Harrison, Laura Nowell, Imogen Matthews, Ruth Wyatt, Georgie Brown, Grace Wade, Lena McGowan, Lily Apps, Jonah Hood, Felix Thrussell, Luca Vicaria and Will Butcher made up the rest of the team representing the club.

Above: Charlotte and Georgie Brown at this year's County Championships

Above: Eloise Wade is presented with the silver medal in the Junior Championship at this year's County Championships (top) and Eloise and Grace Wade at the Championships.

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Newbury Swimming Club held its annual presentation evening at Thatcham Town Football Club earlier this month.
A total of 96 awards were given out to swimmers, and the Extra Thanks prize was this year given to volunteer Jo Harrison, who was presented with a gift for going ‘above and beyond’ her duties as club secretary.

The Most Improved Swimmer trophies went to Georgia Humphreys and Jamie Leach, while the Endeavour Cups were presented to Halley Sharp, Laurence Cook, Imogen matthews and Roman Buckland.

The Wilkie Trophy was awarded to Elspeth Crane and the Billie Hart Swimmers of the Year were Freya Barlow and Can Tugcetin.

The outgoing club captains – Kirsten Fraser, Christopher Emberlin, Ruth Wyatt and Luca Vicaria – were presented with medals, while the new captains for the year were also named as Lucy Bosley (junior girls), Rory Shore (junior boys), Freya Barlow (senior girls) and Kaleb Fox-Jones (senior boys).

The club also paid tribute to Janet Hopkins as she celebrated 60 years with the club - sharing a montage of photos from her years at the club (pictured below).

It was also announced that Mrs Hopkins will now become club president.

She said: “I was really surprised and pleased to be acknowledged at the presentation evening.

“When I first started in 1959, the club only operated in the summer in the unheated Northcroft outdoor pool.

“I have always enjoyed the swimming, teaching and coaching I’ve done and I am glad to have helped so many people to swim both for pleasure and to compete.

“Things have changed so much over the years and the club’s fantastic successes at the weekend in county competitions makes me very proud.

“I hope to continue for a few more years at least and see even more success from our swimmers.”



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