7 days ago
Wrexham's Joanne smashes her best times at British event
Wrexham's Joanne Andrews, 15, took a huge step in her swimming journey at the Aquatics GB British Next Gen Championships.
The event was held at the national pool, in Ponds Forge, Sheffield.
Joanne, who trains and competes for Ellesmere College Swimming Academy and has been a member of the Welsh development squad for two years, pushed on from her early season success at the North Wales regional championships, where she won nine gold medals and two silvers in her 15-16 age group individual events, after just turning 15 a few days earlier.
Joanne qualified for no fewer than six events at the British championships by ranking in the top-24 fastest times in the UK for her 15 year age group.
Just 28 female swimmers any age qualified for more events.
Ranking fourth, 17th, 24th, ninth, 18th and 24th, expectations were for two possible finals and a chance of a medal.
However, Joanne completely blew this out of the water by taking a combined 21.68 seconds off her personal best times for the 6 events to qualify for five finals, achieving one silver and one bronze medal.
The silver came in the 200m butterfly, where she amazingly took more than three seconds off her pb.
Meanwhile, a bronze medal was secured in the 400m individual medley.
Here, Joanne took an astonishing nine seconds off her personal best.
Further medals almost arrived in 100m butterfly and 200m breaststroke.
In the butterfly, she touched in fourth place, just 0.05 seconds from bronze.
An hour earlier saw the breaststroke final and a near five-second personal best saw her fourth.
Taking more than three seconds off her personal best, Joanne finished fifth in the 200m individual medley.
She was 14th in the 50m butterfly, taking 0.7 seconds off her personal best.
As well as having a number of top-10 UK rankings for her age group, Joanne's times see her ranked number three in Wales any age for 400m individual medley, and, remarkably, 23rd on the all-time Welsh rankings list.
She is also ranked sixth in Wales for 200m butterfly and eighth for 200m breaststroke.
In her 15 year old age group, she is ranked first in Wales for five events - 400m individual medley, 200m individual medley, 200m and 100m butterfly, and 200m breaststroke.
Joanne has been a student and swimmer at Ellesmere College for the past few months and with their coaching team, she has improved significantly in this time.
