Crawley are National Speed Series champions

The overall top female was Crawley’s Great Britain youth international and British record holder, Jessica Hancock.

Last year she successfully represented the club at both youth and open levels in all the various pool disciplines which amounted to 12 individual and eight team events and so contributed significantly to Crawley’s total point score.

In the men’s competition Crawley swooped the top six places with GB international Ben Taylor Walsh taking top spot followed by Simon Worne in 2nd, Richard Jagger 3rd, Ireland captain David Butler 4th, England representative and ex-youth World record holder Martin Schofield 5th and current Youth British record holder Sam Murray in 6th.

The Speed Series comprises the following four major UK Championships; the RLSS National Speed Championships, The Welsh National Still Water Championships, Yorkshire Speeds and the Crawley Open which in 2018 involved a total of 775 swimmers from 44 separate clubs.

Crawley Town’s 44 competitors whose ages ranged from 12 to 80 with an average age was just over 23 amassed a total of 96,555 points from the four championships, where 20 points are gained from an individual or team win, 18 for second and 16 for third, down to a single point for 16th place.

Crawley were a significant 14,544 points ahead of their nearest rival Blyth, despite the team from Northumberland having a greater total entry with 62 competitors.

If you would like to find out more about the Speed Series please visit www.lifesavingspeedseries.co.uk.