Butterfly brilliance from Deepings Swimming Club members

The Festival, which replaced the East Midlands Regional Championships, cancelled due to Covid restrictions, took place at the long course 50 metre Harvey Hadden pool in Nottingham. It was the final meet of the highly disrupted 2020/21 season.

Sadie Hunter and Holly Roffe renewed their friendly rivalry in the 13yrs age group a week after they both set new Deepings club records in the 200m butterfly – Sadie as a 12-year-old and Holly as a 13-year-old.

And the two girls set the pool ablaze for the second consecutive weekend in both the 100m and 200m butterfly.

In the longer event, Sadie pulled clear of the field in the early stages to take a convincing lead, but had to dig deep to hold off a fast-finishing Holly over the final 50 metres. In a fingertip finish, Sadie claimed first place in 2:47.04, just 15 100ths of a second ahead of second-placed Holly.

It was an even closer finish in the 100m butterfly as Holly jumped out to an early lead in the first 50 metres. This time it was Sadie’s turn to do the chasing and a perfectly timed finish saw her take second place in a time of 1:17.15, eight100ths of a second quicker than Holly, who finished third.

Olivia Hunter, Sadie’s older sister, finished first in the both the 17yrs 100m and 200m events, while Sophie Baskeyfield took second place in the 18/over 200m butterfly. Olivia also impressed with an excellent fourth in the 100m breaststroke.

Jacob Briers, Deepings’ only boys representative, also excelled in the 200m butterfly, holding off strong competition to finish second in the 13yrs age group.

With a heavy race schedule, featuring six events in less than three hours, Jacob finished inside the top 10 in five of them.

In arguably swimming’s toughest race, the 400m individual medley, Jacob just missed a podium spot, coming fourth – the first time he had swum this demanding event in a long course pool. He also came seventh in the 200m breaststroke, eighth in the 200m individual medley, ninth in the 100m butterfly and 13th in the 100m breaststroke.

Club captain Holly Leggett also competed for th final team before leaving the club for university. In the 18/over age group, Holly doubled up in the 100m and 200m backstroke, coming ninth and fifth respectively. After the 200m event, she returned immediately to the action in the 100m freestyle where she came a creditable ninth, despite minimal recovery time.

Molly Briers and Bethany Eagle-Brown qualified for the evnt, but missed out because of injury.