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LAUREN'S WIN RAISES THE ROUFFE
Killerwhales impressive form in the 2006 Essex County Championships continued in the latest round of the competition

--- Interim Report ---

Killerwhales swimmers continued their good form at Block C of the Essex ASA Country Championships and Age Groups Competition over the weekend at Fullwell Cross. Lauren Rouffe was in spectacular form when winning the girls 14 years 800m Freestyle title, her first ever County title. Lauren dominated her heat for 700m and then for good measure put in an impressive 1.08 seconds split for the final 100m to take the gold medal finishing just 1.5 seconds outside the County record but improving her previous best time by a massive 35 seconds. She underlined the improvement she has made in 10 months since joining the ‘Whales by taking silver in the 200m freestyle. Her all-round ability and strength of character were demonstrated with her making the finals of both the 100m butterfly and 100m breaststroke where she finished 6^th and for good measure also took sixth in the 200m breaststroke.

Killerwhales boys captain Dan Hime was in fine form all weekend in the 16+ years age group. He was crowned 200m breaststroke champion with a powerful display of controlled breaststroke. Much of his win could be attributed to the confidence he took from his earlier display in the 100m breaststroke final where he was up against two of the better breaststrokers in the UK. In a truly thrilling final Matthew Smith (Hornchurch SC) and David Jacobs (Romford Town SC) would have been favourites to battle for gold, however they would have been surprised to see Hime with them at the 50m mark, Jacobs started to pull away taking Smith with him, Hime responded and stayed with Smith all the way, Jacobs just edged in front over the closing 15m taking gold but Hime wasn’t finished and in the closing two strokes did enough to touch out Smith for silver. Dan produced two other very solid displays in the 200m and 400m Individual Medleys where he took bronze medals in both.

Lewis Clifford-Stephenson completed another Killerwhales hat-trick of County Champions at Essex with a marvellous 100m breaststroke gold in the boys 12 yrs age group finishing inside this years National Qualifying Time. He was just pipped to gold in the 200m breaststroke event taking the silver with a 5 second PB but just .3 second outside of the NQT mark. Lewis completed his medal haul for the weekend with two 4^th places in the 200m and 400m Freestyle.

Dean Smiths rise to prominence in the boys 14 years age group continued with 5 medals in 5 events. A tremendous 1500m (60 lengths) was capped with 6^th place which was quite remarkable considering he was only a reserve for the competition having not been considered in the top 24 for the combined 13 & 14 years heats. His team-mate Johnny Congdon also a reserve got a start and was unlucky to finish just outside the medals in 7^th place. Smith competed in two other memorable races, in the 100m backstroke a keenly contested race between Smith, Samuel Ward (Thurrock SC) and Daniel Stepton (Becontree SC) saw the three pull clear of the rest whilst remaining neck and neck for the 4 lengths, the keen eyed officials placed Smith in third behind Stepton and Ward. In the 200m Smith had another battle royal with his previous club mate and race favourite Stepton with the pair matching each other stroke for stroke over the eight lengths, although Stepton was some 7 seconds quicker on paper Smith was determined not to let the race go to form, in a real nail biter it was Stepton who was judged to finish first by finger tips from Smith. Dean, like many of his Killerwhales team mates proved his range of ability by also taking silver in both the 100m IM and the 100m free the latter being the first time he dipped the magic 60second mark.

Kirsty Forbes gave it everything in the 16+ 400m medley against her main adversaries Grace Francis of Thurrock and race favourite Bethany Faulkner of Borough of Redbridge. Faulkner set the early pace with a lengths lead in the fly, if Forbes was to win she needed to pull clear of Faulkner and third placed Francis during her favoured backstroke phase, a valiant effort saw her hit the 200m mark with a 2m lead on Faulkner with Francis just behind in third, knowing her rivals form in the final two phases of breaststroke and front-crawl Forbes had to work hard to try to keep with them. Whilst Francis over took Faulkner Forbes managed to stay in front by a metre. The final charge of Francis started in the front-crawl but instead of passing Forbes the Killerwhales star responded and pushed Francis all the way to the final touch, quite how the two were separated by the touch judges was surprising but Francis was given the nod landing Forbes with a fine silver medal. Kirsty also took the silver medals in both the 100m and 200m medley events.

Jodie Momodu posted a great time in the 11 years 100m medley but unfortunately was disqualified for a dubious call for a technical infringement. She made amends later by taking fourth in the 200m medley.

The Andrews sister Henny and Laura also took home Essex pennants for finishing in 4^th place. Henny took fourth in the for the 15 years 100m freestyle whilst Laura took 6^th place in the 16+ years 200m butterfly.

see results sheet