Stephanie Proud (Chester-le-Street), 12, the youngest member of the British team at the European Youth Olympics, in Murcia, Spain gained its second gold medal with an incredible swim in the 200m backstroke in which she took a chunk off her previous best time to set a new record for the event and prove what a bright international prospect she is, writes Eric Wilkinson.

She was originally only chosen for the 100m but her form over 200m, prior to going was so good that she was put in at the last minute and showed a clean pair of heels to the opposition.

She said afterwards, "I was a late entrant and did not have any great expectations, I am so happy, I had a game plan to go out fast and not let them get away, it worked and I went for it in the last 50m. I still have the 100m and that is my favourite event."

In the 100m Stephanie was beaten by the narrowest of margins, just one tenth of a second, despite taking over a second off her best time. However, she is delighted to have added a silver medal to the gold with the medley relay team still to come.

Her brother, David is also a promising free-style swimmer, her father Ian, an inspector in the police, is a former county champion, and has swum in the British police team, he still competes with success in masters events.

Chris Wilson (Wear Valley), the other local in the team, was sixth in the 200m breaststroke. On their return, these two, along with a host of other youngsters from the north east, will be competing in the national age group championships which start at Sheffield on Sunday and end on Friday.

Newcastle's Chris Cook has been selected as a member of a small team of 11 which will represent the British Universities in the World Student Games in Beijing, China in August.

He celebrated last week by scoring a double title win in the men's 100 and 200m breaststroke at the National Long Course Championships at Crystal Palace, he was also third in the 50m. His club mate Sarah Whewell swam to victory in the women's 200m individual medley and was fourth in the 50m freestyle.

Newcastle had two other medalists in Julie Fort, third 200m back stroke and fourth 200 and 400m individual medley, and Darren Wigg third 400m individual medley. First place going to York's Robin Francis (Bath University). Caroline Saxby (Durham Aquatics) was fourth in the 800 and 1500m freestyle.

Britain gained its 11th win in 12 years at the Luole, Portugal Youth International Water Polo Tournament by beating Ireland 8-4 and 5-4, Portugal 17-4 and drew 8-8. Matthew Bowden (Sedgefield) scored four goals. The team travels to Hagen, Germany today to take part in the finals of the European Youth Water Polo championship. There are four groups of four teams with the top two in each progressing. Britain are in the strong group A with Germany, Greece and Italy, its opening game is tomorrow against host country Germany, which is Andrew's 18th birthday. There are also three Yorkshire players in the team in Richard Leighton, Matthew Birch and Adam Schofield, all Rotherham.

The GB team has done exceptionally well to qualify for the final round of the championships, the last time it did so was in 1994 when it did not win a match.