City of Oxford swimmers amassed a magnificent seven open gold medals at the South East Regional Winter Championships held in Portsmouth on the 5th and 6th November. The open championship gold medallists were David Murphy in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events in 28.00, 59.83 and 2.13.27 respectively. Kate Mills in the 50m and 100m butterfly in 28.05 and 1.02.25; Emily Nisbet in the 200m Butterfly in 2.15.75; and Emily Wood in the 200m breaststroke in 2.27.99. Murphy also took bronze medals in the 200m and 400m individual medley (2.05.99 and 4.26.28 respectively) with Wood taking silver in the 100m breaststroke (1.09.79). All four swimmers have subsequently been selected for the South East Region team to compete at the Fédération Franҫaise de Natation, Golden Tour Camille Muffat in Nice, France from 2nd to 6th February 2017 (one of the most important pre-Olympic meets, attended by world class swimmers).
Callum Smart added Junior Championship golds in the 50m breaststroke (29.23) and 100m breaststroke, the latter in an Oxfordshire & North Bucks Junior County Record of 1.02.81. Smart’s times also saw him take silver and bronze respectively in the Open category. Lewis Gilchrist took silver in the 200m junior backstroke (2.07.73) and bronze in the 100m backstroke (1.00.13) Maia Little added a bronze medal in the junior 100m breaststroke in 1.12.83 with Connor Bryan also getting bronze in the junior 200m breaststroke in 2.20.65.
Pictured: Emily Wood, Kate Mills, David Murphy and Emily Nisbet