It was a busy weekend for Clevedon swimmers over the 4th and 5th November with the squad split between the Brockworth, Cinderford and Lydney Open, The Western Counties Championships and the Mini Series Final.

22 swimmers represented Clevedon Swimming club in Gloucester at the Brockworth, Cinderford and Lydney Open and, in an annual competition that usually sees Clevedon do well, the squad brought back a stunning 13 medals and 48 PB's! Chelsie Kirman's performance was possibly the most outstanding with Gold in the Individual Medlay and Silvers in the Fly and the Back, but hot on her heels were Bethan Clinton with silver in the Breast, Lee Hicks with Silver in the Fly and Bronze in the Free and Breast, Sophie Hicks with Gold in the Fly, Laura Neal with Silver in the Breast, Will Powell with Bronze in the Fly, Back and Free and last, but not least, Stefanie Reynolds with Gold in the Fly.

Dannielle Appleford (3), Taylor Bennet (2), Bethan Clinton (4), Jo Cox, Noelle Finch (5), Rosemary Harris (3), Lee Hicks (4), Sophie Hicks (3), Emma Hopkins, Chelsie Kirman (2), Ruby Lynch (2), Laura Neal (2), Adam Ollis, Rebeca Parsons (2), Charlotte Powell (2), Will Powell (3), Stef Reynolds (3), Tom Riddell, Abby Searle (2) and Kelly Waygood (2) picked up the PB's.

Meanwhile, high drama was in progress at Hutton Moor, Weston-super-Mare, in the Western Counties Championships. This is the premier West of England swimming competition open to all ages and 6 of Clevedons finest swimmers were in action against the best swimmers around at the open age group. All of the squad achieved PB's and some fabulous performances were put in. This 2 day meet was dramatically interupted in the middle of the second day as the water became too murky for the swimmers to see the walls of the pool and the meet had to be abandoned! This undoubtedly stopped some of our swimmers from grabbing further honours. The team was Steve Bowen, Sophie Feboul, Ellena Ibal, Joe Iles, Megan Prideaux and Amber Summerell. At 12 years old, Amber Summerell was one of the youngest swimmers to qualify for this tournament and she swam superbly against swimmers up to twice her age to finish up with a ranking of 33 in the West of England at 100m Breaststroke.

Finally, the Saturday evening saw many of the above swimmers reunited at the Final of the Mini Series event in Keynsham. Clevedon went into the Final in pole position having won the previous two galas. After a thrilling evening's racing, they romped away with first place beating the 5 other teams.

Captains, Chelsie Kirman and Ryan Neat hold the trophy aloft:

Dannielle Appleford, Matthew Bray (2), George Harris, Lee Hicks, Sophie Hicks, Ben Horner, Tom Jones, Nick Kelly, Suzannah King, Ruby Lynch, Ryan Neath, Andrew Payne, Stef Reynolds, Amber Summerell, Harry Thornton (3), Patrick Trower, Liam Wakefield, Elizabeth Warnes and Kelly Waygood swam PB's.

There were far too many individual and team first places to list, but special mention must be given to Harry Thornton who was on fire all night, capping a magnificent evening with a tenacious performance in the final, Canon relay, stealing victory from Bishopsworth when all seemed lost and winning the Star swimmer award.

Graham Feboul - Press Officer