Sophie Yendell's Swimming Success and Ambitions
My name is Sophie Yendell, and I am a year nine student at Tamworth Enterprise College. I swim seven times a week for two hours. Most weekends I compete for the City of Derby Swimming Club. Swimming is a passion of mine and has been since I started attending swimming lessons at the age of nine.
In 2014, I started swimming competitively at Kingsbury Aquarius Swimming Club, who supported me at the Warwickshire championships. However it was later in 2015, again at the Warwickshire championships, where I began to have success in the swimming pool. I was awarded two 1st, one 2nd and one 6th place for my age group as a 13 year old and also won the open category for the women’s 50m butterfly.
I then achieved 4 midland qualification times and became midland 13 year old champion at 50m butterfly. I continued to improve and became eligible for the British Swimming Summer Championships LC 2015. I achieved 7th place in the 50m butterfly for 13 year old girls, with a new personal best of 29.25seconds.
I met the requirements to be invited to the ASA Summer Championships where I came in 9th place for the 50m Freestyle for 13 year old girls, with a new personal best of 28.56 seconds.
In October 2015, I was selected to swim for Warwickshire at the inter County Gala, where my medley relay team came in 1stplace. This was soon followed by the ASA winter nationals long course, in December 2015, where I was able to compete in the 50m butterfly and was the 2nd fastest 13 year old in Britain as well as the 14thfastest 15 year old and under. I also achieved a new personal best of 28.75 seconds. I am incredibly happy with my achievements so far and hope to get much further with my swimming career. I have recently moved clubs to City of Derby where I continue to train hard mornings and nights before and after school. At the end of February I am competing at the Derbyshire counties where I will swim for new titles and awards. My dream is to swim internationally and one day I would love to swim at the Olympics, that’s all I would like to do when I leave school and I cannot wait to see where this sport takes me!
Sophie at the Sheffield Meeting
Sophie Yendell had a great meet at the East Midlands Regional Championships last weekend, held in Sheffield
Sophie won Gold medals for the 50m Freestyle with a time of 27.94s, 100m Freestyle in 1:00.78s, 100m Butterfly in 1:06.45s and 50m Butterfly in 28.55 at the meet held at Ponds Forge in Sheffield’s 50m Pool and also recorded fifth place in the 50m Backstroke from the 7 individual events she entered.
Sophie also represented City of Derby in two 14/16 years women’s relay teams won a silver medal for the 400m Freestyle event and recorded a 4thplace for the 400m Medley event.
The photo shows Sophie with the medals she won.
Congratulations Sophie for some great swims and good luck in the British Nationals in July.