Alnwick Dolphins have their best ever results at the Northumberland and Durham swimming championships

With a record number of swimmers making the tough qualifying times, there were personal bests (PBs), finals qualifications and a large medal tally of seven golds, five silvers and six bronzes, leaving the club ninth in the medal table.

Just making the tough qualifying times for this competition is a huge achievement, as it includes the best swimmers from Northumberland, Durham and Tyne and Wear with large city clubs like Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough included.

For some of the younger swimmers this was their first taste of competition at this level and for the older ones, keeping their form and requalifying again is a testament to their dedication.

In the age group category, Edward Gale, Eliza Hodson, Finn Orr, Isla Samuels and Isabella Oldfield had fantastic swims.

Special mentions must go to Faye Campbell and Archie Brown who qualified a year early aged just nine years old. They had very impressive swims, securing PBs with Archie claiming a club record in his 200m backstroke.

Emilia Waugh had great swims in the 200m freestyle and the 800m freestyle where she claimed a new club record.

On their debuts, Finley Waugh, Oscar Dennis and Emma Owen all secured finals places. Finley and Emma made two finals in the breaststroke events and Oscar in the 100m freestyle.

Tom Robinson had a strong championships, making finals in backstroke and freestyle. He missed out on a medal in the competitive 50m freestyle, but did secure qualification to the North East Regional Championships.

Felicity Oliva had an impressive first weekend making finals in the 50m fly and winning bronze in the 200m backstroke.

Andrew Batley qualified in the breaststroke events and secured an excellent bronze in the 50m. He narrowly missed out on a second medal in the 200m breaststroke.

Sandy Brown had another strong championships, culminating in a bronze in the 800m front crawl, silver in the 400m and 1500m front crawl, and gold in the 200m backstroke.

Once again, Matilda Wilson performed very well, claiming club records, making finals and getting a silver medal in the 200m individual medley. She went on to take the clean sweep of gold medals in the 50m,100m and 200m breaststroke, achieving top-three times in Britain in the process.

Harriet Oldfield had an excellent championships and won three bronze medals, two silvers and three golds. A lot of club records also went tumbling to Harriet during these swims.

Ed Brown, Megan Park and Tiffany Jones competed in the very competitive open category.

Tiff, who is coming back to her best form, swam the 200m fly and 50m free, making the final of the 200m fly.

Ed once again had a strong championships, qualifying in virtually every event, making numerous finals and setting new PBs in the 200m backstroke and the 200m individual medley.

Megan swam in the 200 front crawl and 50m backstroke, completing two fantastic swims.

This set of results leaves a number of the swimmers in a strong position for regional championships in May and also in with a chance of gaining qualification to the British Summer Championships and English Summer Nationals.

Thanks go to the fantastic coaching team and the Alnwick Dolphins Committee, all of whom are volunteers.

For details visit www.alnwick dolphins.com