Harps secure fourth

SWIMMING: HARPENDEN S swimmers moved into the top four in the Hertfordshire Swimming League s Major League competition on Saturday night confirming their Division One status for another year. Beaten in the league only by Hatfield, Watford and Bishop s St

SWIMMING: HARPENDEN'S swimmers moved into the top four in the Hertfordshire Swimming League's Major League competition on Saturday night confirming their Division One status for another year.

Beaten in the league only by Hatfield, Watford and Bishop's Stortford the club is currently going from strength to strength.

Whilst the club is one of the smallest in the county in terms of membership, it undoubtedly now ranks as one of the best in terms of performance.

Just back from their week's training camp at the British Swimming Intensive Training Centre at Bath; the swimmers were up for the challenge of bettering last year's fifth place finish. On the night they finished fifth, but that was enough to move them up into the top four overall. The top four finish means that the club is one of the seeded teams for next year's competition which in turn means they will be guaranteed to miss Hatfield and Bishop's Stortford in the first round.

The night's events got off to a solid start with club captain Georgie Smith securing fourth place in her 100m Freestyle. The quality of the competition on the night was shown by the fact that swimmers were recording big PBs and still finishing in fifth and sixth place - Juliet Merelie took 1.3 seconds off her 50m Breaststroke coming in in 42.74 for fifth whilst Theo Dixon took 4.8s off his 100m Breaststroke and finished sixth.

Michael Revell scored the teams first second place finish in his 50m Breaststroke scraping 0.5s off his PB at 40.90s.

In the first 12 races the swimmers recorded eight PBs. At the first check on the night the competition was very close with Harpenden and Hoddesdon fighting for fourth place with only one point between them. The second section of the gala saw Abby Smith take second place in her100m Butterfly coming in in 1:11.42 whilst the U12s Boys and U14s Girls Freestyle Relay teams both recorded second place finishes.

The next 12 races saw second place finishes for Megan Campfield in her 100m Freestyle knocking nearly one second off her PB to record a time of 1:05.44 and Alex Revell for her 100m Breaststroke.

In the final set of relays, the swimmers clung onto their position to take the fifth spot on the night. The club are now looking forward to this month's County Championships at The Venue, Borehamwood where they have 44 swimmers representing the club across the various events.