Swimming

held at Ponds Forge, Sheffield, bringing together the elite swimmers of the North of England.

Northallerton had a record number of entrants qualified for the event surpassing all expectation at the start of this year's campaign.

Gareth Waton, the club's only previous entrant, showed his outstanding talent achieving fifth place in the 50m breaststroke just missing out on a bronze medal by 0.16 second, the narrowest of margins. Gareth also made it to the finals of both medley and freestyle relay events. In total he set seven personal best times at the meet, an outstanding achievement.

Ten-year-old torpedo Zara Dee Hannay became Northallerton's first even medal winner at the event striking gold and bronze in the freestyle and medley relays with team mates Alex Smethurst, Nicole Kelsey and Emily Crosbie (Hartlepool), the latter narrowly beating Leeds A team by 0.89secs in a tense ding dong battle to clinch the gold medal. Zara Dee set four personal best times lowering her freestyle pb to 34.94 seconds.

All ten NASC swimmers taking part lowered their pb times. Tenacious performances by Jessical Noone and Adele Carmichael both in 5m fly, Graham Caygill, Ralph Stokeld and Biddy Atkinson were all outstanding in the 50m breaststroke. Graham lowered his time by over one second. There was no holding back Laura Hugill and Abbie Thompson in the 50m backstroke and with Oliver Wray flying at the moment in the 50m butterfly it proved to be a highly successful weekend for the club.

Club coach Barbara Blades was so thrilled with the overall dedication and commitment of the swimmers taking part yet her thoughts went out to two of the NASC swimmers Emily Shaw and Ewan Lister who have worked so hard this year to qualify but unfortunately were unable to attend due to being ill on the day.