After the Devon team’s great performance in retaining the regional shield on 13th November at Millfield, their points were put forward for inclusion in the National Inter County event.
The team knew that they had put in a great performance but it was not until the national positions were revealed, we learned that Devon had convincingly won this prestigious national competition. Devon amassed an incredible 1972 points to take the championship beating Hampshire 1929.5 and Middlesex 1904 into second and third place.
Warren Barrett had an exceptionally successful afternoon putting in four stellar individual performances. In the 35+ age group he secured three national first places with exceptional swims in the freestyle, backstroke and butterfly plus narrowly missing out on another win in the breaststroke. He was also part of two successful relay teams that gained second place nationally.
Simon and Kalon Veale also put in very strong performances, with Simon in the 65+ age group picking up two national firsts in the freestyle and the backstroke and a second place in the butterfly. Kalon, in the 25+ age group, secured two first places in the backstroke and butterfly.
Cameron Williams, swimming in the 18+ age group, gained two first places in the breaststroke and the butterfly, with Fritz Dietz taking first place in the 18+ backstroke and third spot in the 18+ freestyle.
There were other great swims:
Charlie Smith picked up a second place in the 45+ backstroke, while Emily Tyrell secured two third places in the 18+ breaststroke and butterfly.
Tegan Drew also came third in the 18+ backstroke.
Special mention must be made of Bill Letch, who was persuaded out of ‘semi retirement’ to claim fourth place in his individual event and assist with two top-10 performances in both his relay swims.
Many other swimmers took top 10 positions in their individual events:
They were Rebecca Jenkinson, Ben Winter, Kim Saddler, Sue Haigh, Kate Veale, Gareth Cowell, Emma Challis, Sonny Trigg, Darren Beer, Bill Letch, Trish Warren and Rob Holderness.
As well as some fantastic individual swimming, Devon showed the strength and depth of its team this year by taking first place in three relays, coming second in four relays and gaining 11 other top 10 placings!
1st
72+ freestyle
Cameron Williams, Fritz Dietz, Sonny Trigg, Kalon Veale
100+ medley relay
Kalon Veale, Cameron Williams, Sonny Trigg, Rob Holderness
72+ medley relay
Fritz Dietz, Cameron Williams, Kalon Veale, Sonny Trigg
2nd
100+ medley relay
Tegan Drew, Emily Tyrell, Kim Saddler, Emma Challis
140+ medley relay
Matthew Mew, Rob Holderness, Warren Barrett, Ben Winter
100+ freesyle
Fritz Dietz, Sonny Trigg, Warren Barrett, Kalon Veale
100+ freestyle
Kim Saddler, Emily Tyrell, Emma Challis, Tegan Drew
Full results can be found here:
PDF2022_Intercounties_events results.pdf
Devon team 2022
Warren Barrett Darren Beer
Emma Bickley Jess Bickley
Emma Challis Peter Cousens
Gareth Cowell Fritz Dietz
Tegan Drew Alex Goulden
Sue Haigh Peter Hayward
Rob Holderness Rebecca Jenkinson
Bill Letch Matthew Mew
Christa Page Jamie Page
Katie Pateman Hannah Pullinger
Kim Saddler Charlie Smith
Nigel Travers-Griffin Sonny Trigg
Emily Tyrell Kate Veale
Kalon Veale Simon Veale
Trish Warren Cameron Williams
Ben Winter
The team’s thanks go to Devon President, Jane Brimacombe, our Vice President, Esther Rookes and Dave Avery who gave up their time to officiate and support the team.
Also thanks goes to Robert Clark for recording the teams individual splits on the day and for selecting Emma and Sonny as his swimmers of the meet.
My personal thanks go to Kalon for his skill (and perseverance) in team selection.
Once again many many congratulations to everyone.
Sue Haigh
Devon Masters Representative
The National County Championship took place at Ponds Forge Sheffield weekend over the weekend 1st/2nd October.
The Devon Team were excited to take part and start their campaign to regain the title they won in 2019……….and we were putting forward an extremely strong team.
The weekend started early on Saturday morning with the long coach drive to our accommodation for the Saturday night. After supper, with the kit distributed, it was a reasonably early night for all as we had an early start in the morning.
Breakfast was at 07.00 as our warm-up slot was 9.45……. but this was not ideal as racing was not due to start until 1.15!
Devon were competing in Division 1 along with 19 other teams while in Division 2, 17 teams were taking part.
Just before the start of racing, team captains Leah Whittaker and Riccardo Lucarelli represented Devon in the team parade.
During the event, Devon swimmers produced some excellent swims:
In the individual events, Flawia Kamzol gained first place in the girls 14/15 years 100 m butterfly (1.00.02) and later on in the afternoon was just tipped into second place in the 100m freestyle (56.76).
There were also first places for Leah Whittaker (1.00.99) and Matthew Ward (55.37) in the 16/17 years 100m backstroke, Hollie Widdows in the 16/17 100 m butterfly (1.01.20) and Fergus Thomson (57.07) in the 16/17 100 m backstroke.
Erin Little took second place in the 16/17 freestyle (54.98) as did two of our relay teams, the 14/15 years men’s medley team of Fergus Thomson, Stanley Partridge, Johari Masinde and Abduljabar Adama and the women’s 16 /17 years medley team of Leah Whittaker, Claire Heullou, Hollie Widdows and Erin Little.
A special mention must be made of Reuben Murphy, swimming in the boys 12/13 years breaststroke and coming away with an amazing 5 second PB!
Throughout the afternoon there was great team spirit and many excellent swims but unfortunately we had two team DQs which put us further down the results table then we really should have been.
In the end Kent proved to be just too strong for us this year and we settled for a very creditable fourth place.
So, well done and congratulations to the whole team .
The full results for Division 1 can be found here:
Thank you to those officials who gave up their weekend to support the team: Lynn Rayment, team manager, Alison King technical official and coaches Richard Beard, Rikki Morris and Louis Joyce.
We were also grateful for the support of the Devon County President Jane Brimacombe, and the Vice President Esther Rookes who also travelled with the team..
Sue Haigh
Devon Team Manager
OLY
