Stockport Metro swimming club is celebrating the end of a fantastic summer season with a clutch of medals, including an impressive four gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze across numerous International and National competitions.
The squad of more than 20 swimmers, who train at Life Leisure in Stockport, competed in several events over the season, including the Commonwealth Youth Games, The World Para Championships, Artistic European Juniors and British Summer Championships.
Among the best performers were 18-year-old Reece Grady coached by Rick Hall, who claimed gold in the 400IM for Team England at the Commonwealth Youth Games held in Trinidad and Tobago. Reece, from Macclesfield, swam in three events and medalled in all of them. Reece, who competed against the best junior swimmers in the Commonwealth – including Australia and Canada – also won silver in the 1500 Free and silver in the 400 Free.
Siena Oxby, 16, from Nantwich, put in an impressive performance at the World Para Championships. Coached by Ciaran Beard-Jones, she was selected for Team GB at the World Para Championships in Manchester swimming the 100 breaststroke. Siena was one of the youngest members of the team and she made her first ever World Championship final finishing seventh overall.
Evie Walker, 18, from Mottram St Andrew, made the final of the free team at the Junior Artistic Swimming European Championships in Portugal. Coached by Sara Dixon and Emma Connolly, she competed for GB in Technical Duet (placing 8th), Free Team (placing 9th), and Acro Team (placing 5th). Evie will be spending even more time with the GB team when she moves to Bristol University to study Engineering Mathematics.
Fin Pope 16, from Bury, was also thrilled to finish third in the National Open Water 5km race.
In addition, the Stockport swimmers excelled at the British Summer Championships and the Swim England Summer Championships. Altogether 15 youngsters raced in 47 events at the British Summer Championships, picking up seven medals, including two from university member Joe Deighan. The team also had a total of 29 finals/top 10 positions.
Medals came from Fin Pope (Gold 400IM), Reece Grady (Bronze 200 Free), Tylia Glynn (Bronze MC 200 Free), Evie Clare (Bronze 800 free) and Dan Khodaverdi (Bronze 400 Free), who was swimming as the youngest in the 14/15 year age group and would have come first in his own age group. His 200 free also ranks him third fastest ever 14 year old in GB.
Twenty-one swimmers raced in 34 events at the Swim England Summer Championships, with a total of 13 medals including two gold, six silver and five bronze, plus 26 finals/top 10 positions.
The club also boasts nine swimmer selections for Swim England National programmes.
Rick Hall, who is head of performance swimming at Life Leisure and has been selected to coach on the Swim England Youth programme, said: “We’ve had a really exciting summer season at Stockport Metro with some incredible results at both national and international level.
“All our swimmers should be very proud and I’m excited to see what they achieve next.
“I personally want to congratulate Coaches Liam, Ciaran, Sara and Emma who have done an incredible job this season, especially after the closure of GC, difficulties with air quality and other coaches moving on. It has been a challenging year, but I am so proud of the team for what they have achieved.”
