KAYLA van der Merwe and Oli Fairman both toppled two county junior records as Dorset swimmers reeled in more than 50 medals at the South West Youth Championship.

Bournemouth Collegiate School’s van der Merwe registered a clean sweep of the 16yrs breaststroke titles on her way to four gold medals in Plymouth.

Her winning time of 1:11.75 in the 100m breaststroke lowered her former club-mate Beth Aitchison’s Dorset junior record from 2011.

She also won the 50m and 200m breaststroke in 34.16 and 2:36.53 and the 200m individual medley (IM) in 2:21.93, breaking Jazz McCrea’s county junior record.

Dorset swimmers dominated the 16yrs breaststroke with BCS’s Grace Poynter joining her team-mate on the podium with three bronze medals and Poole’s Abbie Quarrie and Issy Hepburn and Sherborne Storm’s Fay Graham and Phoebe Kelman-Johns also making finals.

Poole’s Fairman more than matched van der Merwe’s tally, winning all three 16yrs backstroke finals and the 200m and 400m IM despite being the youngest in his age group.

In the 200m IM, he finished seven seconds clear in 2:11.79 to lower former Bournemouth Dolphin Joe Poynter’s Dorset junior record from 2009 by 0.6sec.

His winning 59.27 in the 100m backstroke shaved 0.11 off his own county junior record.

He was also senior champion in the 200m backstroke, missing a third county record by 0.02sec.

BCS swimmers joined Fairman on the podium with bronze going to Alex Bryant in each of the backstroke events and Finn Trehane in the IM.

Trehane also won silver in the 16yrs 50m breaststroke.

Ella Chown added six medals to the BCS tally with gold in the 15yrs 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly, silver in the 100m freestyle and bronze in the 200m freestyle and 200m backstroke.

Her 100m fly time of 1:04.15 put her almost three seconds ahead of the silver medallist.

Poole’s Ella McNamara won bronze in the 50m butterfly.

BCS’s Onioluwa Taiwo won gold in the girls’ 16yrs 50m freestyle and silver in the 100m while team-mate Christian Tai was second in the 17/o 100m IM.

Poole’s Jazz McCrea collected two silver and three bronze medals– and it took Plymouth’s Commonwealth Games finalist Laura Stephens to keep her off the top step.

McCrea came second to Stephens in the 200m IM in 2:21.81 and was also second in the 50m fly and third in the 100m fly and 50m and 100m freestyle

Poole’s Thea O’Keefe won gold in the 17/o 800m freestyle and silver in the 200m free.

Swim Bournemouth’s Drew McGregor achieved four podium places, winning silver in the 15yrs 100m breaststroke and 200m IM and bronze in the 50m and 200m breaststroke.

Seagulls’ James Richardson won gold in the 16yrs 800m freestyle and tied in third place in the 400m freestyle.

Three of his team-mates also made the 15yrs podium – Sonny Chamberlain-Hyde with silver in the 200m backstroke and Miles Ward and Sam Small with bronze in the 800m freestyle and 50m freestyle respectively.

Tanya Blanchard put Wareham on the medals table with a shared silver in the 15yrs 50m breaststroke.

The 800m freestyle covered age group as well as youth swimmers and produced a glut of medals for Dorset clubs including gold for Poole’s Max Looker and Claire Stuhlmacher (11-12yrs) and Swim Bournemouth’s Alex Palotai-Avella (14yrs), silver for Poole’s Ryan Openshaw (13yrs) and Robbie Hemmings (14yrs) and bronze for Poole’s Ben Cutbush (16yrs) and Teagan-Mae Graham (17/o).

Poole also won bronze in two 4x200m freestyle relays – through the women’s 17/o team of McCrea, Graham, Kath Baker and O’Keefe and the 14-16yrs boys’ team of Fairman, Cutbush, Ollie Cleal and Louis Clayton.