POOLE'S Jacob Peters is within touching distance of next year’s Commonwealth Games following a stunning series of swims at the World Junior Championships in Indianapolis.

In the space of five days, the British junior champion:

• swam in two finals and two semi-finals at his first global event

• demolished two national age group records

• smashed four Dorset records

• came within a fingertip of a Commonwealth Games qualifying time

• rose to fourth and fifth in the GB men’s rankings

Peters, who was 17 on August 20, the day he arrived in Indianapolis, began as he meant to continue with a British 17yrs age group record of 53.32 in the 100m butterfly heats.

This also knocked over a second off his Dorset senior record, qualified him seventh quickest for the semi-finals and took him to fifth in the British rankings behind James Guy, Adam Barrett, Duncan Scott and Calum Jarvis, three of whom won relay gold medals at last month’s World Championships in Hungary.

The Poole Grammar School sixth former could not quite match his heat time in the semis, placing 12th in 53.63, though even this was a 0.69sec improvement on his old county record.

On the same day he clocked splits of 53.22 and 52.95 on the fly leg in the heats and final of the mixed 4x100m medley relay.

His butterfly opponents included Olympic gold medallist Penny Oleksiak, 17, who led Canada to victory with the USA second, Russia third and Britain fourth after winning their heat.

Peters, who was up to 18 months younger than many of his rivals, went on to lower his Dorset 50m butterfly record twice in a day, coming 12th in the heats in 24.50 and 15th in the semis in 24.46.

But he saved the best till last, carving 2.25sec off his county record in the 200m butterfly on the final day to come seventh in both heat (2:00.06) and final (1:58.40).

The 1:58 time is also a British 17yrs record, ranks him fourth in Britain behind Guy, Cameron Brodie and Scott and brings him within 0.11sec of England’s qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games.

Intriguingly, Brodie and Scott are Scottish so the fast-improving Peters is now the second Englishman behind Olympic relay medallist Guy.

A drop of 0.11sec at the Swim England Winter Championships in December would put him in the frame for a trip to the Australian Gold Coast in April, subject to the performances of others.

Just 45 minutes after the 200m heats, Peters produced yet another 53-second 100m swim with 53.55 as Britain came 10th in the men’s 4x100m medley relay, missing a place in the final by 0.22sec.

• Swim Bournemouth’s 400m silver medallist Jay Lelliott rounded off the World University Games in Taipei with fifth place in an 800m freestyle final won by Olympic and world 1500m champion Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy.

The Bath University student’s time of 7:55.36 was 4.30sec outside his Dorset record, which won him the uni games title in 2015.