NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS: Golden girl Amelia shines in Sheffield

The 15 year-old City of Peterborough Swimming Club (COPS) star captured three individual medals at the big National Winter Championships in Sheffield to round off a splendid year which also saw her strike British Championships gold and make her international debut in Israel.

The National Winter Championships at Ponds Forge attract the country’s top swimmers with the top 10 in the heats qualifying for the A final and the next best 10 making the B final. In each event there are medals for the top three junior performances.

Monaghan exceeded all expectations by making the A final of the 400m individual medley and her sixth-place finish in 4.55.71 was good enough for junior gold.

The COPS 4x200m freestyle relay team with their silver medals. From the left are Mia Leech, Kenzie Whyatt, Poppy Richardson and Chloe Hannam.

She then went on to display her breaststroke prowess by winning junior silver medals over 100m and 200m.

Myles Robinson-Young (15) was another to win junior medals for COPS. He took the silver medal in both the 200m and 400m freestyle.

And he won a third medal when joining forces with Jamie Scholes, Tom Wiggins and Harry Whiteman to win the bronze medal in the 4x100m medley relay final.

And COPS went one better in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay where Kenzie Whyatt, Poppy Richardson, Chloe Hannam and Mia Leech won the silver.

Myles Robinson-Young won two silver medals.

It was a busy four days of competition for Hannam and Scholes.

Hannam was fifth in the 400m individual medley A final, second in the 100m backstroke B final and fourth in the 200m backstroke B final while Scholes was eighth in the 400m freestyle A final, ninth in the 1500m freestyle A final, fourth in the 200m backstroke B final and 10th in the 50m backstroke B final.

Leech (15) just missed out on a medal in the 800m freestyle where she finished fourth best junior in 9.11.99 while Wiggins made the 50m breaststroke B final and finished eighth in 29.64.

COPS head coach Ben Negus said: “This year’s National Winter Championships have been a very fruitful meet for us. Because it is a senior meet and we really only have the capacity in Peterborough to coach swimmers in their youth, we didn’t expect to compete that highly.

The COPS quartet that won the bronze medal in the 4x100m medley relay. From the left they are Myles Robinson-Young, Jamie Scholes, Tom Wiggins and Harry Whiteman.

“It was a particularly fruitful meet for Amelia and Myles in terms of medals and I’m really happy for them.

“However, the most positive factor of the meet was to see Herbie Kinder, Mia Leech, Henry Pearce and Kenzie Whyatt moving up the rankings and getting closer to those junior podiums.”

Meanwhile COPS pair Eve Wright (14) and Matthew Rothwell (15) won the Top Girl and Top Boy trophies respectively at the three-day COPS Winter Open.

Wright amassed an astounding 5,901 FINA points which was almost 1,000 points ahead of second-placed Amy Paget (12).

Matthew Rothwell won the Top Boy trophy at the COPS Winter Open.

Wright was involved in some great battles, most notably in the 50m backstroke with Ella McGhie (COPS), the 400m individual medley with Rebecca Smith (Norwich) and the 100m fly with Lauren Browne (COPS).

Rothwell won with 6,324 FINA points with COPS clubmate Matty Cussell (16) second with 4,179 points.

Rothwell put in some outstanding racing starting with the 1500m freestyle. He put in a blistering pace and won in 16;40:05 with second place going to Fabian Brudnicki (13 ) of COPS in 18:23:23.