WYRE Sharks swimming squad, took another step forward with some excellent team and individual performances at this year's Northern Counties' Sprint Championships on Saturday (May 15).

This popular annual gala at Stockport continued to attract the best young swimmers from Cumbria down to Staffordshire.

Pride of place again went to the boys' 11/12 years relay team consisting of Andrew Hodgson, Adam Watson, Rennie Whittaker and Lewis Jones who became champions in their 4x50 metres freestyle relay. This is the first time that the Sharks have ever achieved a team win at this level of competition.

The winning time of 2 minutes 2.78 seconds was an improvement of over 1.3 seconds on their heat qualification time and only 0.5 seconds outside the event record.

Just to prove that this result was no fluke, the same team also achieved a superb second spot in the medley race, giving the powerful City of Liverpool squad a good scare in a close finish.

These performances guarantee automatic qualification for the national finals at Coventry in August.

Individual race successes included at 13 years, where David Duffield was placed first in the butterfly (31.99 secs) and second in freestyle, while Heather Palfreyman also won at freestyle (29.96 secs) and came third in fly.

At 14 years, Nicola Butterworth and Leanne Howe were placed second and third respectively in fly, and Mark McCartney gained three second places at free and breaststroke at 15 years.

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