Newcastle's chief swimming coach, Dawn Peart, has been awarded a Winston Churchill Scholarship for which she receives a £7,000 grant, writes ERIC WILKINSON.

She is using it to improve her knowledge by visiting Australia, one of the world's successful swimming nations, where she will study talent identification, development and its 'learn to swim' programme.

Dawn left yesterday and will attend the World coaches meeting which starts this weekend on the Gold Coast and lasts for ten days.

She will then spend four weeks in each of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. On her return she will pass on some of the knowledge she has acquired at the Northumberland and Durham ASA's annual development conference at the Springs Leisure Centre, Sunderland, on October 13 when it is also hoped that one of the speakers will be Bill Sweetenham, British swimming's new national performance director and one of Australia's top coaches for many years, including four times its Olympic team chief coach.

The last of this year's Northumberland and Durham swimming championships is staged at Felling on Saturday (9.30am and 2pm). These comprise the rest of the medley and freestyle relay team races with 21 titles up for grabs. Newcastle is once more represented in all the races and is again likely to be the most successful club.

The first of the new series of open age group graded meets, supported by the Northumberland and Durham ASA for swimmers whose entries were rejected or who did not achieve the standard entry time for their chosen events in the county championships, is hosted by the North Tyneside club at Killingworth on Sunday.

The other five galas are at Newcastle, June 2, hosted by Blyth; Felling, June 30, hosted by Tynemouth; Darlington, July 7 hosted by Richmond; Middlesbrough, July 8, hosted by Middlesbrough and Newcastle, July 14 hosted by Newcastle.

The age groups are ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and over, all heat declared winner Bagcat events are available over the series, excluding 800m and 1500m. Swimwear vouchers will go to the top three in each age group category based on British age group points, at the end of the series.

Middlesbrough had four winners at the Harrogate annual Spa Town Distance open meet. Leading the way was Peter Thompson with four first places in the boys 10-11yrs 200m backstroke and breaststroke, 200m and 400m freestyle.

Deborah Crombie won the girls 10-11yrs 200m backstroke and was second in the 200m individual medley, 200m and 400m freestyle. Danielle Coonan got gold in the 12-13yrs 200m backstroke, silver in the 400m freestyle and bronze in the 200m freestyle. Its other winner was Paul Morren in the 10-11yrs 200m individual medley. He was also runner-up in the 200m freestyle.

Other local winners were: Chris Alderton (Wear Valley) 14-15yrs 1500m freestyle; Thomas Edwards (Harrogate) 14-154yrs 200m freestyle and third in the 400m freestyle and Alice Sunderland (York) 10-11yrs 200m butterfly and freestyle. She was also third in the 200m individual medley.