Electric Moore lights up Schroders meet

Maddie Moore created history at the weekend as she became only the sixth female swimmer from the island in the past 40 years to break the 100m freestyle one-minute barrier.

The 13-year-old entered that elite group on Saturday with a scintillating swim at the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association pool at Saltus during the Schroders Summer Age Group Championships.

The age-group record was 1min 01.14sec but Moore smashed it with a time of 59.46sec.

National coach Ben Smith said: “This was a special swim and electrified the pool for the rest of the night.”

Moore’s top form continued on Sunday when she broke the 11-12 years 100m backstroke record of 1:09.57, finishing in 1:09.32.

She then followed that up with a stunning 26.93 time in the 50m free, an age group record and faster than the 17-18 years record.

The previous day in the 100m free, Shannon Hassell swam 1:01.13 in her heat to set her second AAA time, which makes her eligible for selection to this summer’s CCCAN Championships in Costa Rica.  

Jayson Hassell followed his sister and hit his A time in the 100m free which, in turn, made him eligible for the national training team.

After this we saw multiple personal bests and some fast duels between many of the country’s top male swimmers.  

One of the most impressive swim was from Dejan Wellman, who came in with a personal best of 57.04 but raced to a 55.18. 

 The 200 backstroke was the next event up for grabs and the record-breaking continued.  

Finn Moseley took nearly two seconds off his record from the morning heats to swim a 3min 32.76sec on his way to win the eight and under event. 

The rest of the backstroke events were strong but it was in the 50 fly where the records were taken by a trio of swimmers. 

Emma Harvey in the 11-12 years age group swam 31.14, taking the record from Ashley Yearwood set in 2007.

Star of the night Moore, who has just started to sample butterfly, swam 30.56 to take the 13-14 years record from Ashley Aitken set in 1999.  

Jesse Washington followed the girls’ lead with his 27.09, which beat the 28.14 set in 2001 by Darren Woods.

The 50m back and 100 IM saw several close races and even more personal best swims.  

The night was finally capped off when Shannon Hassell swam the 400m free, where she lowered her personal best from 4:58.67 to her new 4:45.81 which took the record of Ashley Yearwood of 4:46.90 from 2008. 

On the Sunday, as well as Moore, Washington was in top form.

He won his 100m backstroke event in 1:03.16, taking the record from former Sharks swimmer Nick Thomson who swan 1:04.27 in 2006.

Harvey was also again producing some eye-catching swims. 

She lowered her 100m butterfly record from the morning , going 1:11.61 after her 1:12.69 earlier in the day. The next big event for the country’s top swimmers is the National Championships, from June 6-9.