On Sunday 22nd April Stockport Metro once again reigned supreme at Ponds Forge by winning the 19th National Arena Swimming League 'B' final in true style.

Metro started proceedings with Emily Knowles Jones and James Goddard swimming their individual Open 200IM's.  Emily claimed a respectable 4th position opening up the points table for Metro then James dominated his event from start to finish resulting in him breaking his own competition record - which he set last year - with a new time of 2:01.36.

The next eight events saw a range of Metro's medley and freestyle relay teams (ages 9/11 to Open) fighting it out against some major competition with finishing positions ranging from 2nd to 9th.  Still, after ten events with varied positions in the relay events Metro were sitting two points ahead of North West rivals Preston.

Events 11 to 42 were all individual races, this is when Metro started to dominate the leader board with a number of amazing, high-positioning, gutsy swims from their squad.  Emma Rowson and Alex Crossland-Robbins both fought hard to enjoy 2nd positions in the 10/11yrs 50m Backstroke in times of 34.56 and 35.05 respectively.  Liam Selby also showed a solid display in the Open 100m Butterfly after surging forward from 4th position at the 50m mark to finish in 2nd in a time of 57.50.  Maddie Crompton took the 10/11 yrs 50m Butterfly to a touch-out, clinching 3rd position in 33.76 and Molly Tinker swam a strong 100m Butterfly in the 13yrs event in a new PB time of 1:08.88.  Lewis Robinson and Dylan Arzoni also battled to take 3rd positions in the 15yrs 100m Butterfly and 10/11 yrs 50m Breaststroke respectively.

Metro's points tally was also positively affected by some emphatic wins during the individual events.  Lewis Robinson showed true determination when after turning 3rd at the 50m point in the 15yrs 100m Backstroke he touched-out to win by 0.01!  In the girls 10/11yrs 50m Breaststroke Lara Bate enjoyed a clear win by over 1 second in a new PB of 38.31.  Harry Lewis-Mitchell showed his skills in 13yrs 100m Buuterfly by taking the event in 102.30.  The girls 15yrs 100m Freestyle saw Emily Knowles-Jones stamp her authority from start to finish, winning in a time of 58.44.

After his record breaking win earlier in the day James Goddard returned to the pool for the Open 100m Breaststroke taking on a strong field to win in 1:03.67.  Finally, in a powerful swim Dylan Arzoni broke the competition record set sixteen years ago in 1996 for the 10/11 yrs 50m Freestyle to create a new competition record of 27.66!

At this point Metro had a firm lead on the score board.  For the final 8 events of the competition it was back to Metro's relay teams to finish the job which they did in style.  The highlight of the relays came from a brilliant win by the girls 9/11 yrs Medley team who won their event from pure desire by just 0.04 secs.

At the end of the event Metro were proud to see James Goddard take the Top Male Swimmer Award and to have Dylan Arzoni be awarded the Most Improved Swimmer Award.  Finally, Stockport Metro were announced as the winning club and the entire Arena League squad were called to the podium at Ponds Forge to accept their award, it was a great day for Stockport Metro.
 
A big thank you and congratulations to all the squad for all their hard work and commitment and also to the parents / supporters who took the time to come to Sheffield to cheer our swimmers to victory - thank you all!!