2019 BRITISH SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, April 16th – Sunday, April 21st
- Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Glasgow, Scotland
- Prelims at 10am local (5am Eastern)/Finals at 6:30pm local (1:30pm Eastern)
- SwimSwam Selection Analysis
- SwimSwam Elite Men Preview/SwimSwam Elite Women Preview
- SwimSwam Emerging Women Preview/SwimSwam Emerging Men Preview
- Final Start Lists
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap/Day 2 Finals Recap
- Live Results
On the heels of a superb outing last night by teenager Katie Goodburn of Warrender, two more young women upped the ante on junior swimming tonight at the British Swimming Championships.
Sophie Yendell came away with the bronze medal in tonight’s senior final of the women’s 50m butterfly in a time of 26.86. In an extremely tight and furious race to the wall, the 17-year-old City of Derby swimmer fell just .06 out of gold and .02 out of silver, but still came away with a very promising performance.
Yendell entered these championships seeded 4th in a time of 27.09, although her lifetime best rested at the 26.90 from the 2017 edition of these championships. Last year she won the Junior Final in 27.43 and produced a solid 27.41 this morning, sneaking into the final as the 8th seeded swimmer.
However, Yendell broke through to dip under 26.90 in her podium worthy 26.86. She is within range now of Olympian Fran Halsall’s age group record of 26.74.
The other surprise swim of the night for me came from 17-year-old Winchester swimmer Kayla Van Der Merwe. The teen took tonight’s top place in the women’s 200m breaststroke Transition Final in a time of 2:28.51, marking the first time she has been under the 2:30 barrier.
This morning, Van Der Merwe clocked a prelim time of 2:32.08 to finish 10th after the heats, but 2nd in the 17&U age group. That just nipped her lifetime best of 2:32.09 thrown down a week ago at the Guildford City Spring Meet. Prior to that, the Winchester City Penguin had clocked a time of 2:33.83 at the FFN Golden Tour Camille Muffat in Nice.
Flash forward to tonight’s Transition Final, however, and Van Der Merwe took things to an entirely new level with her 2:28.51 victorious effort to win by over a second. With this one swim, the teen all of a sudden finds herself ranked 22nd on the all-time British performers list and 6th among all-time British 17-year-old performers.
Kayla Van der Merwe is now coached by former 50 Br World Record Holder Zoe Baker
I’m surprised that a PB by 0.04 seconds rates as a surprise swim for anyone at any age.
Particularly when you had a 20 year old 200/400 IM’er, who hasnt PB’d in bloody ages, win silver in the 100bk in 54.7 off an entry time of like 57s…
This ‘surprise swim’ analysis takes the entire swim into consideration, not simply the time. A young athlete’s ability to perform on the big stage, upgrade from previous performance placement and, in Yendell’s case, take the podium are all factored into my selection to highlight. It is a subjective analysis.