Charlie-Joe and Ronny both swam at the SW Swimming Festival held in Plymouth at the weekend. This was their first taste of level 1 long course competition since February 2020. The meet was run under strict covid rules with no spectators allowed, so it was a new experience for the boys who also had to submit a negative lateral flow test on the day before being allowed to compete. Ronny swam a solid 100m breaststroke in a time of 1-06-10 to put himself in second position in the 17 year old age group and improve his last long course time swam at Hampshire’s in February 2020 by 5 seconds. Ronny also swam a personal best time of 25.06 in the 50 freestyle placing third.
Charlie-Joe swam himself into the record books in the 100 breaststroke in a time of 1-03-57 taking the long course island record held by Luke Belton of 1-05-17 set at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Although a little disappointed not to meet the Commonwealth long course A qualifying time of 1-03-02 he went on to swim a personal best time of 24.59 in the 50 freestyle. Charlie-Joe is due to move to the UK in September and will be training with Plymouth Leander SC in the National University squad which should provide him with the much needed experience of long course training and competition.
