Six swimmers represented Exmouth Swimming Club at the recent Devon County Development and Sprint galas in Plymouth, and came away with a clutch of medals and some really good performances.

Exmouth Journal:

Six swimmers represented Exmouth Swimming Club at the recent Devon County Development and Sprint galas in Plymouth, and came away with a clutch of medals and some really good performances. The six swimmers, Clara Woodhead, Megan Harris, Luke Crompton, Bethany Browning, James Griffin and Lily Allen accumulated a total of 13 medals and 16 personal best times over the two weekends.

The Sprint gala involved; Luke, Megan, Bethany and James, with the swimmers competing in four 50 metre races, covering all four strokes.

Luke swam really well, and came in the top six in each of races, swimming close to personal best times. Both James and Bethany managed to make it onto the podium. James took home three gold medals in the 14 age group butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle, all three of which were personal best times.

His most impressive performance was arguably in the freestyle in which he clocked sub 30 seconds for the first time.

Bethany came away with a silver and bronze in the freestyle and backstroke respectively, and achieved personal best times in both the butterfly and breaststroke. Similar to Luke, Megan came just outside the medals in the 14 age group, however achieved a top six finish in each event and collected an impressive four personal best times.

The Development gala races are held over the longer distances of 100 metres or more. Megan Harris continued her impressive form with five personal best times overall from seven races. She was unlucky to miss out on the podium with fourth place in the 200 metres breaststroke, 200 metres backstroke and the 100 metres freestyle.

Megan took a massive 16 seconds off her 400 metres freestyle time and nine seconds off her 200 metre Individual medley.

Also recording a personal best in the same event was Clara Woodhead. Her time of 2:53.09 beat her previous mark by 15 seconds and gave Clara a silver medal.

She achieved a golden double by taking both the 100 metres and 200 metres breaststroke, and also got first place in the 100 metres butterfly.

For the final session of the meet the girls were joined by Lily Allen. Both Clara and Lily were paired together in the same heat of the 200 metres butterfly. Clara finished the race in a time of 3:09.64 to claim a silver medal in the 16 age group, whilst swimming in lane nine, Lily set a new personal best time of 3:19.26 to seal bronze in the 15 age group.

The final race of the day was heat 11 of the 100 metres backstroke, which saw Megan and Lily paired together. Seeded quickest, Lily lead the race from start to finish with gold, whilst Megan recorded another personal best time, and a received a much deserved silver medal in the 14 age group.

The next event for the Exmouth Swimming and Life Saving Society is a gala at the Sid Vale Sharks.