The first three months of the swimming calendar have seen some excellent achievements from Tavistock Swimming Club members. To kickstart the season in September, there was a friendly junior team gala at the Life Centre in Plymouth. Under the guidance of club coaches James Lake and Nathaniel Rookes, some of our newest and youngest members took part in their first competition for the club gaining valuable experience for the future.

Next up was the City of Plymouth Meet where our more experienced members competed against swimmers from seven local clubs to gain an incredible 151 personal best times, with 46 medals won and 13 club records broken. Gold medals were won by Mia Buckley, Hannah Chitty, Joel Lake, Alfie Morgan, Nathaniel Rookes and Sarah Teague. Sarah Teague also won the award for top scoring girl in her age group and the Girls Youth Award.

Three senior swimmers attended the Regional Winter ASA Championships at Millfield, Somerset at the beginning of November after gaining the required entry qualification times. Sarah Teague set a new club record in both 50 and 100m breaststroke. Siblings Nathaniel and Kieren Rookes both swam personal best times on the day to qualify for the 50m breaststroke final where they lined up side-by-side to battle it out. Kieren finished just ahead of his brother by 0.2 of a second to win the event.

Meanwhile, 20 swimmers were competing at the Plymouth Leander National Qualifier Level 1 and 3 long course meet.

For some, this was their first experience of swimming events at this distance and over the weekend, 58 personal best times were achieved and 14 club records were broken. An amazing 50m butterfly swim from Cara Mcveigh got her the gold medal and a regional qualifying time. Samuel Rice and Hannah Walker achieved regional consideration times in 200m butterfly and 50m backstroke, res-pectively.

Club spokesperson Hazel Walker told Times Sport: ‘Many swimmers have been competing this year to gain entry times for the Devon County Championships held at the beginning of 2018. Tavistock Swimming Club is pleased to announce that 23 swimmers have qualified in a total of 75 events – the highest number the club has ever seen. A massive well done to all and best of luck next month.’