KELLY College Junior School swimming star Adam John returned from the Bath Age Group Open Swimming Competition last weekend with six gold medals.

Adam, 11, who trains up to eight times a week with Kelly College Swim Squad had a fantastic weekend, winning all six of his events against tough competition.

His achievements are all the more rewarding, as he felt tired going into the event after a week of Adventure Training with Kelly College Junior School.

Tom Howe, 13, managed to struggle through illness on the first day of the competition to win the 100m freestyle and pick up a second place in the gruelling 200m fly. Even though Tom?s best events were on day two the right decision was taken to withdraw him from racing.

Team-mates Oliver Smallwood and Matthew Henry put in personal best performances to come second in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m backstroke respectively.

Both Oliver and Matthew were just outside their National Qualifying Times, which they will be sure to get before the cut off date in June. Matthew, 13, who had a surprise on the opening evening of the competition where he made the final of the senior men?s 400m individual medley, found himself competing against some of the country?s leading men?s swimmers. He earned his right to the final by equalling his best time in the heats.

Under a unique rule for the Bath Meet to encourage faster times, swimmers were only selected for finals based on their heat performances being within 3% of their personal best times in the 200m and 400m events.

Matthew, who entered the senior event for extra experience, unwittingly found himself swimming against top international swimmers twice his size, but still managed to repeat his performance in the final and equalled his best time yet again.

In the 14/15-year-old girls? event, Kelly swimmers Sarah Reader and Jakie Wellman were starting to show signs of making a significant breakthrough in their events. Sarah picked up a bronze for her 200m Fly and Jakie made the semi-final in the senior women?s 50m freestyle and broke her lifetime best in the 100m freestyle.

Holly Yeo, 12, managed to pull back from a poor start to perform with a creditable time to pick up a silver medal in the 200m breaststroke. Whitney Bowrin, 13, also swam best times in the majority of her events. In her main event, the 100m freestyle, she gained a bronze medal and is now only 0.3 of a second outside her National Qualifying Time.

Other best performance times were recorded by David Hill, Josh Lake, Danny Kidwell, Jessica Clear and Brikitta Batten.

? New swim squad member, Sophie Stanford, 15, returned home at the weekend to compete in the West Wales Championships. Sophie recorded a new championship record of 1.17.89 in winning the 100m breaststroke and went on to complete the double by improving her personal best time by 5 seconds to win the 200m breaststroke in 2.49.03.