Pubished: 26 April, 2012
by STEVE BARNETT

SWIMMERS from Camden Swiss Cottage shone at the finals of the National Arena League on Sunday when they competed against starting line-ups boasting Olympians within their ranks.

Over 400 clubs from around the country took part in the competition, which is split into seven regions with three divisions in each.

Flying the flag for London, Camden finished in eighth place overall after tackling a highly-competitive premier division in Sheffield.

To give an idea of the standard of competition Camden were facing, overall winners Stockport Metro had 2012 British Olympian James Goddard in their squad, while runners-up Ealing boasted Bulgarian Olympic qualifier Ekaterina Avramova.

Camden’s most outstanding  swimmers were Will Rittenhouse and Isobel Moffat, who both collected silver medals. Will swam a personal best long-course time of 1.02.63 in the boys’ 15 and under 100m backstroke and was only beaten by one hundredth of a second by Stockport’s Lewis Robinson.

Isobel took the runners-up spot in the girls’ 13 and under 100m butterfly in an impressive new long-course best of 1.08.75. Rosie Hughes and Bogac Ayhan did well to finish third in their respective backstroke and butterfly events in the open age group, while in the boys’ 10-11 age category Dempster Fawden took bronze position in the 50m backstroke.

Olivia Willis finished third in the 100m backstroke and achieved a National Age Group qualifying time of 1.17.90 in the girls’ 15 and under 100m breaststroke where she finished fourth.

The most exciting relay results came in the boys’ 13 and under squad where Zachary Street, Dania Gnevko, Murray Boyle and Hok Wong combined to secure a second place finish.

The girls’ 15 and under freestyle relay squad of Kelly Hookway, Amelia Brown, Tamir Gonen-Cohen and Olivia Willis also raced well to finish third.