Gala triumph for Bradford

8:27am Sunday 5th October 2008

BRADFORD on Avon swimmers enjoyed a highly successful gala at Weston-super-Mare in the Bristol North Swimming Club junior meet.

This meet, for swimmers aged between nine and 12, featured events for all four strokes plus a front crawl and medley relay in each of the four age groups.

From 28 events over two weekends Bradford won medals in 17, with ten golds, making it the third most successful club in boys' and girls' teams and also third overall at the meet. They were competing against over 20 clubs from throughout south west England and South Wales.

Bradford 10 year olds carried all before them. The girls, Ellie Hine, Rebecca Hawkins, Jessie Foster and Chloe Flower, won both their freestyle and medley relays and for good measure swam up to win both relays in the 11-year-old age group. The boys' team of Robert Ash, Edmond Hames, Hayden Burton and Geng To Law won their medley relay and came second in the freestyle relay.

In the individual events for 10-year-olds Chloe Flower came first in the 50m freestyle, second in the 50m butterfly and third in the 50m breaststroke; Jessie Foster first in both 50m breaststroke and butterfly, second in the 50m freestyle and third in the 50m backstroke.

For the boys Hayden Burton won both the 50m freestyle and breaststroke and came second in the 50m butterfly and backstroke.

Jessie Foster was top 10-year-old girl at the meet and Hayden Burton the top 10-year-old boy.

Raphi Dorsman, Luke Owen, Michael Dorsman and William Foster came second in the nine-year-old boys' relay, while Tiana Jones won silver in the nine-year-old girls' 25m butterfly.

For the 11-year-old boys Wilf Lapes gained silver in the 100m backstroke.

Bradford's strong performance came partly as a result of dedication to training of young swimmers and their parents and partly in having 34 swimmers taking part, said chief coach Laurence Northover.

In 2007 there were only three Bradford relay teams but this year eight teams took part in 17 relay swims.

In 2006 only 13 swimmers represented the club.

All coaches, officials and parents at the club were delighted with the young swimmers' performances as it reflects the hard work put in at the club in recent years. Bradford is attracting more young swimmers and more members than most other Wiltshire clubs.