Market Drayton Swimming Club achieves record success at county championships

A Shropshire swimming club is celebrating after seeing huge success at the county championships 2024 - including a total of nearly 80 medals across five days of racing.

The Market Drayton Swimming Club, which meets five times a week, saw 27 of its swimmers qualify for the championships, held over three weekends at the WV Active Central competition swimming pool in Wolverhampton.

The club saw many podium finishes with 27 gold medals, 33 silver medals and 19 bronze medals – a total of 79 county medals across the championships.

To be able to attend the Shropshire Amateur Swimming Association County Swimming Championships, swimmers must have met qualifying times at a previous gala.

Five swimmers also achieved top three places overall, with Connor Simpson finishing first overall in the age 15 male category and Tom Ammundsen third in the same category. Ava Highfield took second overall in the age 13 female category, Paige Simpson third overall in the age 14 category and Scarlett Highfield second overall in the age 15 category.

Head coach Luke Harris said: “We saw phenomenal racing from our swimmers, and we couldn’t be prouder.

“Our swimmers had an incredible number of personal bests, which is what they are all aiming for, and it was fantastic to celebrate their success with them.

“We took a huge number of swimmers to the county championships from what is a relatively small club and it shows the dedication and hard work that all our members put into the sport."

During the championships, the top eight swimmers in the 50m and 100m heats must swim again in the finals- and Market Drayton Swimming Club had 93 swimmers make it to the finals of their races plus 54 swimmers finish in the top eight of the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m events.

“This is a total of 148 top eight finishes - an astonishing number,” said Mr Harris.