Aquatics GB - British Championships/Olympic Trials 2024

Derby Excel swimmers have just been competing at the most prestigious domestic meet of the year, the British Championships, which were extra special this year as they were doubling as Olympic Trials. The best swimmers in the country, ie some of the world’s best, all competed to try to book their place in Paris in August. Competitors included Adam Peaty, Matt Richards, James Guy, Tom Dean, Duncan Scott, Jacob Whittle, Abbie Wood, Freya Colbert, Anna Hopkin and James Wilby.

The event took place at the Olympic park pool in Stratford, London this year, the venue for the 2012 Olympics. 

Fourteen of our swimmers competed over the 6-day meet, which comprised heats in the morning, with finals sessions every evening from 7pm.  The meet programme followed the Olympic programme, ie no 50m events for breaststroke, butterfly or backstroke. 

Our swimmers all did themselves proud at this meet.  

Imogen Clark (25) won a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke Paris final, in a time of 1.07.37, just 0.02s outside her personal best. This is not her favoured event, being a 50m breaststroke specialist and the UK record holder, but she was fiercely competitive as always, and finished just outside the consideration time for the Olympics. 

Georgina Pryor maintained her usual high standards, and showed her versatility over 3 different strokes in her four events. She qualified for three B finals, winning the 100m butterfly in 1.00.21, improving from her heat swim time of 1.01.00.  Georgie, the reigning UK short course 100m backstroke champion, was 2^nd in the 100m backstroke B final in 1.02.34, a new personal best time. She was 5^th in the B final of the 200m freestyle in 2.01.81 (another PB), and finished in 24^th place in the 100m freestyle with a time of 57.07s to round off an excellent week. 

Anna Tyers (16) showed once again what an outstanding talent she is. She qualified for four events, making the junior in 100m backstroke and finishing in third place with 1.03.26 (a PB), an improvement of 0.7s from her heat swim. Anna has improved her PB by 4 seconds in the past 12 months, a wonderful achievement. She also raced the 50m freestyle finishing in 46^th place in 26.98s, 48^th in 200m freestyle in 2.06.80 and 60^th in 100m freestyle. 

George Whittle (18) made two Junior Finals, finishing third in the 100m backstroke in 56.78s, having posted 57.05s in the heat swim (both PBs), then he was 7^th in 200m backstroke in a new personal best time of 2.05.50s, improving on his time in the heat of 2.06.41 (again both were PBs) – capping a great meet for George. 

Ben Twynham (19) raced the 200m individual medley, coming 23^rd in a time of 2.05.95, with the event being won by Duncan Scott, ahead of Tom Dean. Ben also raced the 200m backstroke, finishing in 32^nd with a personal best time of 2.06.62. This was a huge drop from his previous PB of 2.09.44, well done Ben! 

Anya Preece (21) competed in 2 events, the 400 freestyle where she finished 24^th in ` time of 4.24.75, and the 200m freestyle, where she finished 43^rd with 2.06.30. 

Tom Trueman (20) swam the 100 freestyle, finishing 43^rd with a new PB of 51.15s, with Matt Richards of Millfield winning this event. Tom also raced the 50m freestyle, and was 56^th with a time of 23.78s, the event being won by the legend that is Ben Proud!

Pixie Lale-Klasicki (28) qualified for two events, racing the 100m breaststroke (43^rd – 1.13.33) and 200m breaststroke (72^nd – 2.43.77)

Liam Dawson (19) (Belper Marlin/Derby Excel) competed in the 50m freestyle, coming 44^th in 23.61s. 

Alex Harrand (19) (Long Eaton/Derby Excel) swam the 200m freestyle, posting a time of 1.53.45 for 47^th place, and the 400m freestyle where he came 50^th  with 4.06.86

Our other qualifiers’ results were as follows:

Jacob Hamblen (19) (Etwall/Derby Excel)

100m breaststroke – 1.06.78 – 60^th

Ethan Lawton (23)

200m backstroke - 61^st 2.09.94

100 backstroke – 63^rd - 59.28

Nikolai Khutoryanskiy (21) 

100 breaststroke  - 1.09.45 – 64^th

Eja Coe (18) 

100m butterfly – 68^th – 1.04.99

Many congratulations to you all. It’s a tremendous achievement to have qualified for the British Championships, and to get to race with such great names in our sport. 

Well done to our Director of Swimming John Adye for preparing the team so well and looking after the team in London, and for Oli Purgavie who attended Sunday’s session. 

Also there were our very own Paul Hopkinson, who was an official throughout the meet, plus Derby Phoenix's Doug Whitlam who is the current Swim England President.