BOURNEMOUTH Collegiate School’s Finn Trehane has become a British champion on his debut at the ASA National Age Group Championships.

The 12-year-old slashed eight seconds off his previous best time for the 200m breaststroke to strike gold in his very first event at this level.

Trehane started the day at Sheffield with a four-second PB in the heats, qualifying third quickest for the final in 2:42.39.

Despite lowering his time again in the evening to 2:38.94, he actually touched second in the final half-a-second behind Luan Grobbelaar.

But as Grobbelaar is from South Africa and was swimming only in the international category, Trehane took the domestic gold medal as the first British finisher.

He followed up three days later with bronze in the 12yrs 100m breaststroke in 1:14.92, missing silver by 0.06sec. This time represented a 2.5sec PB.

Trehane also improved his PBs on all but one of his other events to come fifth in the 200m individual medley (IM) in 2:26.27, seventh in the 1500m freestyle (18:25.57), 11th in the 400m IM (5:19.67) and 27th in the 400m freestyle.

Swim Bournemouth’s Harriet Perfect came within 1.1sec of a medal after reaching the final of the 14yrs 200m backstroke with a sixth-place heat time of 2:23.06.

She then lowered this again to 2:22.48 to come fourthin the final .

She was 16th in the 100m backstroke.

Poole’s Jacob Peters made four finals and finished in the top 12 in seven of his eight events. His best places were sixth in both the 13yrs 100m freestyle in 57.11 and the 200m butterfly in 2:16.61. He was also seventh in the 200m backstroke in 2:17.80 and ninth in the 100m butterfly (1:03.12) after coming fifth in the heats in 1:01.85.

Peters was also 12th in the 200m IM (2:22.73) and 400m freestyle (4:25.21), equal 12th in the 100m backstroke (1:04.73) and 21st in the 200m freestyle (2:07.49).

Swim Bournemouth’s Kelvin Wong was in top form, losing half-a-second and 3.5sec from his previous best times to place 12th in the 13yrs 100m breaststroke in 1:14.57 and 17th in the 200m in 2:41.20, while team-mate Jemma Green clocked a PB of 2:09.45 to come 15th in the 14yrs 200m freestyle and later placed 29th in the 400m freestyle in 4:36.10.

BCS’s Jack Arnell placed 17th in the 13yrs 100m backstroke in 1:05.96 and 23rd in the 200m back in 2:23.78, while club-mate Christian Tai made the top 20 in both his events, touching 19th in the 13yrs 200m butterfly 2:24.12 and 20th in the 100m in 1:04.57.

Another BCS 13-year-old, Zoe Gannaway, swam all four of the girls’ individual freestyle events, coming 21st in the 100m (1:01.89), 26th in the 200m (2:15.59), 27th in the 800m (9:52.17) and 29th in the 400m (4:49.18).

Swim Bournemouth’s Matt Collins carved seven seconds off his PB, set just two months ago, as he came 21st in the 14yrs 1500m freestyle in 17:23.35 – seven places and 43 seconds better than last year, while team-mate Jess Richens improved her ranking from 35th to 26th as she recorded 2:29.57 in the 14yrs 200m butterfly.

In the last of Swim Bournemouth’s five relays, the girls’ 4x100m medley took three seconds off their entry time to come 13th in 4:33.01, missing the final by just three places.

Perfect led off with 1:07.38, faster than her individual back-stroke, before Izzy Pryce swam a five-second PB of 1:16.66 on the breaststroke. Richens then clocked a season’s best 1:08.06 on the butterfly and Green brought the team home in 1:00.92.

Other Swim Bournemouth relays: Girls’ 4x100m freestyle, 24th 4:08.66 (Richens 1:02.15, Megan Leaper 1:03.73, Morgan Long 1:02.37, Green 1:00.41). Girls’ 4x200m freestyle, 27th 9:02.67 (Perfect 2:16.50, Hannah Stonier 2:17.43, Leaper 2:18.31, Green 2:10.43). Boys’ 4x100m freestyle, 34th 4:00.54 (Ben Samuel 59.05, Wong 1:03.01, Ethan Bell 1:00.07, Collins 58.41). Boys’ 4x200m freestyle, 35th 8:47.69 (Samuel 2:09.66, Bell 2:16.82, Wong 2:14.43, Collins 2:06.78).