Farnham swimmers fourth at strong relays gala

Farnham swimmers came fourth at the recent Rother League Rd 2 on Sat 25th June at Basingstoke. Other participating clubs were Guildford, Basingstoke, Epsom and Isle of Wight. This gala is unique in the swimming calendar in that it is comprised entirely of relay races, aside from two individual medley races (one for girls, one for boys).

Farnhams swimmers found things hard going early on against very strong opposition, coming last in the first 3 races! Despite this poor start Farnham battled hard and came back strongly as the gala progressed. Farnhams victories came in the U14 2x25m Breaststroke relay (Adenais Vachon & Katherine Browne ), U14 2x25m Butterfly relay (Adenais Vachon & Freya Robertson), U14 4x25m Freestyle relay (Catherine Jefferies, Freya Robertson, Katherine Browne, Adenais Vachon) and the U16 4x25m Freestyle relay (Emily Webster, Fleur Robertson, Sarah Fox and Adenais Vachon). In the one individual Girls race, the 4x25m Individual Medley, Farnhams star swimmer Adenais Vachon came home first in a great time of 1m 14.29s Aside from the wins, there were also fighting second places in the U12 2x25m Freestyle relay (Lucy Gibbons & Catherine Jefferies) and the U12 2x25m Breaststroke relay (Sophie Hart & Catherine Jefferies) Other Farnham swimmers gained excellent third places including Richard Hall, David Pallant, Paul Roberts, David Smith, Mathew Teague, Dirk Cox (the Farnham coach), Chris Browne, Marco Astin, Kieran Pickford and Trevor Fry.

By the end of the evening Farnham had worked their way to a very creditable fourth place. This was a tough gala although coach Dirk Cox was very pleased with the swimmers and sees plenty of potential for improvement.