THE SOUTHWOLD girl swimmers were on fire in the first proper weekend of the County Championships at GL1 Gloucester, scooping the highest number of female medals and trophies than all the other clubs in Gloucestershire.

The club runs from Yate Leisure Centre, and Beth made the Championship final in the 100IM and secured Gold in the 400IM but one of the clubs most improved juniors Georgina Locke (15) found herself up against the highly talented GB talent squad swimmer Olivia Butler (12) from Severnside Tritons in the 50 Fly.

Georgina’s form has been improving all year and a huge PB of 30.6, over a second quicker than her previous PB, was enough beat Olivia’s 31.1s to become Junior County Champion at 50 Fly.

The pick of the racing had to be with the seniors girls where Southwold’s Jessica Shaw (16) found herself in a head to head showdown with the five times County Champion and current Champion in 50 Breast Annie Brown (19) from the University of Bristol team (inset picture).

Both girls got off the blocks with identical starts and were level going into their first stroke after the pull-out. Jessica’s faster stroke rate saw her open up a 1.5m lead as they went into the first turn.

This is where the class and strength of Annie showed with a better stronger pull-out bringing her again level with Jessica. But this year Jessica’s better stroke rate pulled her ahead again to take Annie on the touch in 32.9s her first ever sub 33s race and new County record.

Jessica’s stunning form continued in all the other sprints taking County records in the 50 Backstroke, held by the talented Karen Lee for over 12 years, and also the 100 IM record her best event.

The Southwold swimmer also surprised herself with a massive PB in her weakest stroke, the 50 Fly with a 29.2s to go into the Championship final as the fastest qualifier!

What stunning weekends racing with three County records all of which qualifying for the National Short Course Winter meet at Sheffield in December.