SWIMMING: CoStA swimming club was well represented at last weekend’s East Regional Youth Championships with five swimmers from the club competing.

Charlotte Henson, Holly Winfield, Megan Nation, Tom Hempenstall and James Loveman all performed really well but particular mention goes to Loveman, who won gold in the Boys 15 - 16yrs 50m breaststroke with a fast time of 32.51 seconds.

Hempenstall, who swam in four events, not only won medals in all his events, including gold in two of them, but set new East Region records. He won a bronze in the S14 100m freestyle, silver in the S14 400m freestyle, gold in the S14 100m breaststroke, with a new East Region record of 1.31.51 and gold in the S14 200m Individual Medley with another East Region record of 2.54.41. Head coach Stewart Melton is very proud of all the swimmers.

Last Saturday night also saw the first round of the Peanuts League, which is for swimmers aged under 13, with CoStA’s A & B teams both competing. The A team in Division 1 was up against some strong opposition including Hatfield and Watford while the B team swam in Division 2 following their promotion last year and came a strong fourth, narrowly missing third position.

At Borehamwood the A team secured eight wins, 10 second places and 12 third places during the evening. The team swam strongly in spite of a slightly depleted field of swimmers due to the double bank holiday weekend. The evening was full of good swims but in particular the U11s boys medley team comprising Luke Moore, Thomas Toland, Ben Muckleston and Paul Knight. Piers Watford swam an impressive 50m butterfly and a couple of new young swimmers Scotty Brice and Maksym UJ overcame first gala nerves to swim confidently.

Over at Hemel Hempstead the B team, returning to Division 2, achieved good results finishing in the top three in over 20 events, with over half the team making their Peanuts debuts for the club.

Noah Charlesy-Smith and Eleanor Wood both won their individual backstroke races with PBs and there were PBs and great swims for Emma Brooks, Ewan Langford, Hannah Freeman, James Cook, Eleanor Hall, Max Chadwick and Annie O Gorman.

Senior coach Sarah Stephens said CoStA was very proud of the two teams’ results in the first of three Peanuts League rounds commenting: “We could not be more proud of the work of our swimmers and coaches and all the hard work with our Juniors is starting to show. It is so good to see the club going from strength to strength and here’s looking forward to next two rounds of Peanuts.”

For information on joining the club please visit www.costaasc.org.uk