Not Michael Phelps this time, but 9 year old Michael Rees who made his Surrey Championship debut for Sutton and Cheam SC and dominated his age group, winning a staggering 7 Gold Medals and 1 Silver medal in his 8 events, all swum in breathtaking personal best times. Michael’s won both Individual Medley distances (100 and 200 M), 200M Freestyle, Backstroke and Breast stroke, and 50M Free and Back. His one second place came in the 50M Breast stroke. In other age groups, William Ward (10) was very steady once more, especially in the Breast stroke and claimed 3 more Golds, a Bronze and 3 Top Eight Ribbons. George Brown (10) added 3 Silvers, a Bronze and 3 Ribbons and only narrowly missed winning two of his events. With his undoubted free style talent a top spot finish won’t be too long away.
Michael’s terrific effort was the icing on a very tasty cake for Sutton’s Head Coach Jim Walker and Junior Squad coach Helen Andrews whose young swimmers came away with 22 Medals and 48 other top eight performances in the recent Championships. This is the best all round performance the club has managed for many years and shows the improvement the club is making after Jim Walker brought in new training schedules and a structured squad system.
The encouraging swims were not just confined to the younger ones as 15 year old Jacob Tidy won a silver medal and no less than 12 ribbons with 14 year old James DeBrunner not too far behind winning 3 Bronze medals and 9 Ribbons. Team Captain, Ace Taylor (15) and the club’s only female medallist Nicole Barron (14) also proudly took home Bronze medals and 2 Ribbons each.
In overall terms the depth of talent the club can call on is rapidly growing and is highlighted by the fact that in 2009 Sutton and Cheam won 5 medals from 2 swimmers and this year’s tally was 22 medals spread between 7 swimmers. A further 8 competitors contributed to the final Top Eight Ribbon count of 48, all of which took the club up to 9th in the overall medal table, ahead of many of the larger and perhaps more fashionable clubs in the County.
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