Just two days after her final GCSE, sixteen year old Laura Kinley faced a challenge of different kind as she lined up in the British Gas ASA National Swimming Championships in Sheffield, against some of the country’s top swimmers who were looking to fill the final few places in the British Olympic Team.
Her first and best event, the 50m breaststroke is not an Olympic event, but this did not make the competition any less severe, with less than two seconds separating the top ten competitors who then went through to the final.
Laura swam a life time best of 32.65sec in the heats to qualify for the final in 5th place, taking half a second off her Isle of Man Senior Record in the process. Her swim in the final was slightly slower at 32.77 to give her 6th place, just over second behind the winner, Edinburgh University’s Kathryn Johnstone who set a new Scottish record with 31.69. This was an excellent performance from the Manx swimmer against some older and more experienced competitors. Of the five swimmers ahead of her all but one were in their twenties, the only teenager being an eighteen year old.
Laura is now top of the British Swimming Rankings for 16 years olds in this event, and ranked 5th in Europe in the 15 to 16 age group.
Over the following two days Laura also swam the 100m and 200m breaststroke. In the shorter event her time of 1min 12.52sec gave her 13th place, just under a second outside of qualifying for the final. The event was won by Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, from Bath, in a massive life time best of 1m 08.04s. O’Connor will now join Kate Haywood in this event at the Olympics.
In the 200m Laura finished 19th in 2m 40.90, just over a second outside her best time. Molly Renshaw, who won the silver medal for England in this event at the last year’s Commonwealth Youth Games, was the winner, but now has an agonising wait to see if she has done enough for Olympic selection as her time of 2m 27.72 is just under a second outside of the target time set by British Swimming.
Also competing at the event was Laura’s fellow Cavendish and Gubay Scholarship holder, fifteen year old Charlotte Atkinson. Charlotte’s first event was the ultra competitive 50m freestyle, where her time of 27.77 was just half a second outside of her best. Victory went to Loughborough’s Amy Smith in 25.36.
Next up was the 200m backstroke, with Charlotte recording a time of 2m 24.74. This event was won by Steph Proud in 2m 09.40 – fast enough to earn her a place on the Olympic team.
Charlotte’s final event was the 400m individual medley, which saw her achieve her highest place finish of 16th with 5m 07.62.
This has been a tremendous experience for the islands top young swimmers, particularly for Laura to make a final, and there is every reason to believe that at the next Olympic Trials, for Rio de Janeiro in 2016, they will be vying for places in the team.
