HANLEY Castle High School swimmer Alex Barry helped the West Midlands School Swimming team to an historic win at the ESSA Inter-Region Championships in Liverpool.
The Year 8 student’s selection was a huge achievement in itself as the team was drawn up from the best swimmers in the age groups from all over Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Warwickshire.
The 13-year-old also had the extra honour and responsibility to be the female junior captain for the event, making it a very special weekend for the young swimmer.
Alex and the rest of the team travelled up to the Liverpool Aquatic Centre in high spirits and soon enough the points were piling on the board.
At the end of the first day (Saturday) the West Midlands team were in joint-second with Alex taking fifth place in the 200m backstroke as well finishing fourth in the 4x100m relay medley.
Day two was much tougher but the swimmers kept putting points on the board.
The highlight of the day for Alex came in the 4x100m freestyle relay where she and her City of Birmingham Swimming Club team-mates Erin Davies, Millie Checkley and Alisha Greenshields took silver medal.
The final result came down to the last race with the West Midlands team scraping through and managing to secure the overall team victory by just one point over the South East team.
This was the first time ever in 67 years that West Midlands became the inter-regional National Champions.
The gala move to Crawley, West Sussex in March 2018 where they will try to defend their crown.