Lifesavers to the rescue - club return to Crawley with medals and titles galore

Members set four new British records, gained 10 national titles and won 16 gold, seven silver and three bronze medals and notched many personal best performances.

Crawley Town Men avenged with interest last year’s defeats by the Loughborough University team when Richard Jagger, Sam Lawman, Ben Taylor-Walsh and Ryan Flanagan smashed the 4 x 50m Obstacle relay record by over two seconds in a time of 01:41.54 before cruising to victory in the Championships Blue Ribbon event, the 4 x 50m Medley relay in a time of 01:31.23, setting another British record.

In achieving this Ryan recorded a remarkable 23.11 seconds for his initial 50m freestyle leg making him Crawley’s fastest swimmer ever.

The very competent Crawley Men’s B relay team of Alex Jackson, Joe Woollard, Sam Murray and Martin Schofield won bronze medals in the 4 x 50m Obstacle relay together with two fifth placings in the Manikin and Medley relays.

Martin (ex-Youth World Record holder and current European Open Champion) once again lowered his own Open British record by one 100th of a second when retaining his Men’s Open 12.5m line throw again with his catcher Alex, who incidentally is last year’s Youth European bronze line throw medallist in his own right.

Crawley’s Girls 15/17 new look relay team comprising Keira Narraway, Emily Hurst, Frankie Phillips and Georgia Blenkley, snatched gold from Leeds Phoenix in the Obstacle relay and silver in the Rescue Medley relay.

Individually, Keira and Emily had convincing wins in their respective 100m Obstacles and 100m Manikin Carry with Fins events. Keira celebrated her victory by immediately swimming the Women’s 200m Obstacles event where she finished fifth. Frankie and Georgia’s best placing were fourth in the Girls’ 12.5m line throw.

A special mention for Sadie Phillip competing in the 15/17 age group for the first time when she achieved 29th place in the 50m Manikin Carry.

Crawley Town were unable to field their all-conquering Boys team from last year, but Jack Sadberry and Iker Lopez still kept Crawley Town’s flag flying high when, like Sadie, swimming in their age group for the first time, achieved best places of sixth and twelfth respectively in the Boys 15/17 100m Obstacles..

In the youngest age category, Amaia Lopez shone bright as Crawley’s latest star when winning three golds in the 100m Obstacle and 100m Rescue Medley and 50m Manikin Carry, before just losing out on the final turn to be beaten into silver in 100m Carry with Fins.

This was truly a remarkable performance because not only does she have one more year left in this age group, but she smashed a 10-year-old British record by over two seconds in the 100m Rescue Medley with a time of 01:18.32.

Brother and sister Ike and Amaia are not only top speed lifesavers but also very practical lifesavers as they proved two weeks before, when representing Sussex, they finished runners-up in the Mixed Pairs Lifesaving Championships.

Crawley Town’s activities are now very much on hold with the postponement of the SLS-GB Pool Life Saving Championships and this year’s World Championships RESCUE 2020 which will be moved to 2021 or 2022 in Riccione, Italy.

The club would like to take this opportunity to remind isupporters of the first rule of lifesaving: Try to avoid placing yourself and others in imminent danger. With the support of Everyone Active at K2, Crawley Town will return to action as soon as circumstances allow.