Leander’s Dunn wins five golds and sets a new British record at National Championships

PLYMOUTH Leander’s world champion Reece Dunn ended a memorable 2019 by winning five gold medals and setting a new British record at the National Para-Swimming Championships in Manchester over the weekend.

Dunn only made his para-swimming debut at the same event 12 months ago, but since then he has gone on to break a number of S14 British and world records and won three gold medals and a silver at September’s World Para-Swimming Championships in London.

In Manchester, he took S14 and overall multi-class victories in the 100m freestyle (52.95), 200m IM (2:18.96), 100m backstroke (59.98), 100m butterfly (57.11) and 200m freestyle (1:59.75).

The 24-year-old’s latest national record came in the 100m backstroke.

He said: “I’m trying to nurse a few injuries and get some motivation back after the worlds.

“I’m doing some more events than I usually do just to get some fitness back. So breaking the British record in an event which isn’t my main one is great.”

There were also medals in Manchester for Mount Kelly’s Ben Grainger and Sebastian Williams and Devonport Royal’s Abigail Daly.

Grainger won the 14-17 years’ S10 100m freestyle (1:01.66), 50m freestyle (28.05) and SB9 100m breaststroke (1:16.46) and a picked up a silver in the S10 14-17 years’ 400m (4:44.90). In the 50m freestyle and 100m breaststroke he won multi-class 14-17 bronze medals.

Williams claimed silver medals in the S6 14-17 years’ 100m freestyle, 200m IM, 50m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, 100m backstroke, 400m and 50m butterfly. His butterfly swim also earned him second in the multi-class standings.

Daly won a bronze medal in the S14 14-17 years’ 100m butterfly. She was also fourth in the 100m freestyle, fifth in the 200m IM and 200m freestyle and sixth in the 100m backstroke.

Plymouth Leander’s Andrew Keeler came seventh in the S14 breaststroke and was 10th in a strong S14 100m butterfly, which was won by his team-mate Dunn.

Meanwhile, this week Plymouth Leander’s Laura Stephens will be back in action when she competes for Great Britain at the European Short Course Championships in Glasgow.

Stephens is one of just 18 swimmers who feature in the British team.

The championships start on Wednesday and run through to Sunday. Stephens will compete in her favourite 200m butterfly event on Friday.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s