THE recent Action Championships provided opportunities for some solid swims from the Margate Swimming Club team members, proving that hard work does pay off.
Highlights included a fantastic first swim of the championships by Danielle Smith (14) in her 400m individual medley (IM) event, taking gold in a time of 5:27.07.
She continued her medal haul with gold in the 200m backstroke, silver in the 200m IM and 100m backstroke, and bronze in the 100m freestyle and 50m backstroke events.
Charles Thompson (13) dropped five seconds in the 400m freestyle event to record a new personal best time of 5:14.15, edging his way closer to the five minute mark.
The junior swimmers showed great confidence, tackling the distance events with April Niemack (11) dropping nine seconds in her 200m breaststroke and Arno Smith (12) powering home in his 200m IM event in a time of 2:49.73, narrowly missing out on the Level 3 qualifying time!
Joshua Parry (10) had a fantastic swim in his first attempt at the gruelling 100m butterfly event, showing great form from start to finish, while Liam Botha recorded personal best times in all of his events, qualifying Level 2 in both the 50m and 100m freestyle.
Jeandre Joubert dropped five seconds from his 200m IM, showing great improvements in the breaststroke leg and narrowly missing that Level 2 time.
The boys competed in both the freestyle and medley relay, finishing sixth overall in both events. The club ranked ninth overall out of 20 competing clubs.
