TAVISTOCK Swimming Club has a national swimming champion after Matt Edwards achieved this excellent, golden result in the 1,500m freestyle at the ASA Summer Nationals, which took place at Ponds Forge in Sheffield. 

Matt, who joined the club when just 10 years-old in 2004, has loyally trained with and represented the club since that time. He was the club captain in 2010/11 and again in 2012/13. He continues to train and coach at the club.

A brilliant swim, superbly paced, meant that he swam almost every one of the 30 lengths in very similar times, which brought him to the finish line to win the gold medal by five seconds in a total time of 16 minutes 20 seconds.

Matt said: ‘It was an excellent time, I am over the moon about the three second personal best. I have been training really hard, so I was expecting an improvement. I can’t say that I was really expecting to take gold though, so I am really pleased about that!’

Tavistock Swimming Club head coach, James Lake was delighted for Matt.

He said: ‘Well done, we are so proud of Matt. If someone had told me beforehand that I would coach  a national champion, I would not have believed it but here we are with a gold medal around his neck! Awesome.’

Tavistock Swimming Club congratulates Matt on his brilliant achievement and would like to thank the club coaching team, led by head coach James Lake and also the senior swimmers, who assisted Matt in his training for the nationals.