SARAH Thomas, 15, and Rachel Banfield, 17, from Kelly College, hit gold medal winning form at the recent Western County Youth Swimming Championships held at Millfield.
The Kelly girls produced outstanding performances in some of the toughest races on the swimming programme.
Sarah won three gold medals, two silvers and a bronze. Her top performance came on the Saturday when she won the 14/15 years 200m butterfly (2.25.32) where she swam away from the field from the start to produce the fourth fastest time in the UK this year. Only minutes later, Sarah swam again in the final of the 400m individual medley and outsprinted Sussie Rudge from the University of Bath to win in a time of 5.10.69, again ranking her in the top five in the country.
Rachel Banfield, not to be outdone by her team-mate, also won the 16/17year 400m individual medley in 5.09.15 which was almost six seconds over her closest rival, Siobhan Walsh, who is currently on the British Potential Squad.
Rachel also went on to win the 200m backstroke (2.24.41) and gained a silver medal in the 100m backstroke and 200m individual medley.
Sam Calcutt, the Kelly girls' team captain, despite recent illness, managed to gain two silver medals in the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle.
Kelly College men's relay teams came home with a bronze medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay. Peter Freedman, Paul Brew, Russell Page Dove and men's team captain Rob Pratt were in the thick of the competition in a close finish between the University of Bath and Millfield.
The women went one better and came home with two bronze medals in the 4x100 freestyle and the 4x100 medley relays. Beth Campbell Boseley, Elaine Reyes, Rachel Banfield, Sam Calcutt and Sarah Thomas were pushing the big teams from Bath and Millfield all the way.