SWIM Bournemouth’s Oli Fairman is the new distance king of Dorset swimming – and the prince as well.

The 14-year-old was crowned county senior and junior champion after winning the first and longest event of this year’s Dorset County Championships.

Fairman, who will not be 15 until the end of the year, swam 60 lengths of Dorchester’s 25m pool in 16min 48.20sec to win the 1500m freestyle titles.

The time carved more than half-a-minute off his previous best and saw him lap all but one of the other swimmers in the field.

His scalps included Poole’s butterfly ace Jacob Peters, 16, and club captain Ben Porter, 20, who claimed the senior silver and bronze in 17:25.91 and 17:32.02.

Peters, who will next month make his international debut with an England youth team in France, was the only swimmer to avoid being lapped.

Fairman, who tracked the two Poole swimmers for the first 16 lengths before hitting the front, said: “I wasn’t expecting that.

“My goals were to try and stay with Jacob and break 17 minutes.

“But at 400m, I started to pull ahead. That was a surprise.”

He added: “I’ve never focused on this event until a couple of months ago when I started working on it and realised I could do well. I’ll focus on it a bit more now.”

Seagulls pair Miles Ward and James Richardson also made the championship podium, claiming the junior silver and bronze medals in 17:43.95 and 17:45.41 respectively.

Age group winners were Ward (14yrs), Fairman (15yrs) and Poole trio Ryan Openshaw (12yrs), Robbie Hemmings (13yrs) and Peters (16/o).

Thea O’Keefe staged a dramatic finale to claim the women’s 800m freestyle senior gold.

The Poole swimmer moved from fourth to first in the last 150 metres to complete the 32-length race in 9min 14.25sec, 3.52sec ahead of Swim Bournemouth’s Savannah Barman (9:17.77) with Poole team-mate Jazz McCrea third in 9:22.17.

Swim Bournemouth also won two of the three junior medals with Isabelle Hepburn taking the gold in 9:26.37 and Amy Brown the bronze in 9:51.98.

Junior silver went to Bournemouth Collegiate School’s Alex Palotai-Avella in 9:36.61.

Age group winners were Swim Bournemouth’s Harriet Fish (12yrs) and Hepburn (15yrs), Poole duo Holly Harris (14yrs) and O’Keefe (16/o), and Palotai-Avella (13yrs).

The championships continue at Littledown this weekend.

• Poole remain on course to regain their Dorset Novice League title despite splitting their resources by entering two teams for the first time.

Both Poole teams will go into next month’s final with a 100 per cent record after winning their first and second round galas.

The Poole Yellow team top the table but Poole Black are only 23 gala points behind.

Individual winners for the Yellows were Liam Duffy (2), Luca Sartorius, Lily Edwards, Jack Barron, Marley Smalling, Jack Goddard and Holly Chandler and for the Black team Stefi Zsold, Claire Stuhlmacher, Luca Garton, Tommy Rook, Zack Studley, Tilly McHugh (2), Freddie Pearce, Lucy Gibbs, Ben Deretz, Alyssa Sanders Jones Doble and Lily Burke.

Tornadoes of South Dorset and Wareham & District are third and fourth after two second places each.

Round two results:

At Weymouth: 1 Poole Yellow 177, 2 Tornadoes of S Dorset 151, 3 West Dorset 148, 4 Ringwood Seals 132, 5 Clayesmore 109, 6 Weymouth 86.

At Dorchester: 1 Poole Black 181, 2 Wareham & District 145, Seagulls 131, North Dorset Turbos 118, Blandford 113, Bridport Barracudas 111.