THE CHAMPIONSHIP 50M Sprint Gala 200 at West View Leisure centre was a new event for Preston swimming club, created to fill a gap created by a change in format of the main club championships.

This will follow the bagcat formula and contains more distance events with no 50M sprint events for the older swimmers.

The gala was open to swimmers aged 13 and over.

The results were: 50M Backstroke: Ladies 1st Rebecca Dobson 2nd Zoe Addison 3rd Amanda Thurlow Gents 1st Richard Cole 2nd Andrew Addison 3rd Stephen Davison 50M Breaststroke: Ladies 1st Lauren Newton 2nd Alexandra Todd 3rd Amanda Thurlow Gents 1st Richard Cole 2nd Stephen Davison 3rd Michael Wilson 50M Butterfly: Ladies 1st Rebecca Dobson 2nd Jenni Holden 3rd Charlotte Davis Gents 1st Richard Cole 2nd Greg Skinner 3rd Andrew Addison 50M Freestyle:Ladies 1st Rebecca Dobson 2nd Charlotte Davis 3rd Zoe Addison Gents 1st Richard Cole 2nd Greg Skinner 3rd Andrew Addison.

Micro League of the North West. The 29th September saw the Preston Sharks micro league team competing in the Division A final at Salt Ayre. The best performance came from the 11 year old girls medley relay team of Rachel Armistead, Jenny Cutler, Elizabeth Vinson and Bethany Kington with a new Micro League record of 1.08.78, beating their previous best time by 5 secs. Dispite this, several other wins and lots of personnel bests, Preston finished in 4th place 10 points behind Newton Hall. Fleetwood finished in second place with Leyland Barracudas taking the top spot this year. This is the Sharks best result since 1996 and is hopefully a sign of better things to come next year.