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Icing on cake for Sevenoaks swimmer Eva Okaro

Talented swimmer Eva Okaro (13) of Sevenoaks Swimming Club attended the prestigious EURO Meet in Luxembourg in January representing the Swim England South East team, having gained qualification following victory in the 50m Freestyle & 50m Butterfly events at the Winter Regionals in November 2019.

The European event which took place at the aquatic centre “d’Coque” at Luxemburg-Kirchberg, allowed Eva the opportunity to compete alongside Olympic and world record holders: Sarah Sjostrom, Katinka Hosszu and Florent Manadou, all of whom recently represented Energy Standard Team (worthy winners of ISL) and the Swim England Performance Team.

The team set off in the early hours of Thursday 23rd January and once they arrived at the hotel they were whisked off to training with the rest of the competitors. There were three age bands, Open, Junior and Youth. The Open age group was all ages, Junior swimmers were those born in 2003/04 and Youth swimmers born in 2005/06.

Eva was chosen to swim in six individual events for Swim England South East, they were: 100m backstroke; 100m butterfly; 50m butterfly; 200m freestyle;  100m freestyle and the 50m freestyle. She was also chosen to swim in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay.

Eva Okaro from Sevenoaks Swimming Club with a selection of her medals including a gold.

Both the 200m freestyle and 100m backstroke swims were excellent, but she really showed her talent in the 50m butterfly swimming a superb 28.65s placing her 2nd with the Silver medal.  She also swam a new personal best (PB) to gain Silver in the 100m butterfly with a time of 1:02.89. Her third Silver was gained with another PB in 100m freestyle in a time of 58.24s but the icing on the cake was an amazing Gold medal in the Youth age group in 50m freestyle with a new PB of 26.47s.

Finally in the 4 x 100 Mixed freestyle relay, Eva swam the anchor leg and swam an incredible time of 56.60s! The team came 8th in the Open age group and Eva was the fastest girl in both South East relay teams.

She came home smiling, having finished with four PB’s, three Silver medals, one Gold medal and a ton of experience from her first International away meet with a team. A huge achievement from such a young swimmer.

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