National Junior Para-Swimming Success

Harvey Phillips (13 years of age) from Louth Swimming Club competed in the prestigious National Junior Para Swimming Championships 2018 at Southampton on Saturday 14th April.
He swam in 4 events – 50m and 100m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke and 150m Individual Medley. Swimmers compete aged from 10 to 18 years. Harvey swam in the 14-16 year age group as he turns 14 by the end of this year.
Harvey was in the very first event and heat of the Saturday morning – 100m Freestyle. He set off at a storming pace and set a huge 8 second Personal Best (Pb) time! One gold medal in the bag!
His next swim – just before lunch, was 50m Breaststroke, which he swam alone, so had to get a personal best in order to gain a gold medal. He managed to knock off a huge 12 seconds from his previous personal best time and bagged gold number 2!
Harvey followed that up straight after lunch, with the 50m Freestyle and again he out-performed any expectation we had, breaking the 1 minute time barrier for the first time, with a time of 59.78! So third gold medal was clinched. The final swim of the day was the 150m Individual Medley (50m of Backstroke; Breaststroke and Front Crawl). A mere 17 seconds was knocked off that by Harvey, again having swum this most gruelling event, alone!
He also met Olympic and Commonwealth Para-Swimming Gold medallist - Alice Tai, at the event! Harvey, who had been at Wembley with Lincoln City FC last weekend as guest of the Club and walked with them onto the pitch at the Checkatrade Trophy Cup-Final, has had an exciting couple of weekends.
This unbelievable performance meant that Harvey came away with 4 Gold medals from 4 swims and is British Junior Champion in all those events in his age group. He is pictured here with his medals. Harvey is next competing at the British leg of the World Series (British Para-Swimming International Meet) which is held in Sheffield over 4 days – between 31st May and 3rd of June 2018. This will be the first time that Harvey has qualified for this event which is another huge step up for him – he has 3 qualified in 3 events - 50m, 100m and 200m Freestyle. All at Louth Swimming Club wish Harvey every success for his future in swimming.
Sarah Richardson (Harvey's Coach)
Louth SC