CHRISTMAS came early as Poole swimmers won a stocking load of goodies at Dorchester, including 19 medals and 78 personal best times.

Many also set county qualifying and regional consideration times at the Dorchester Christmas Open Meet.

Development coach Becky Brown said team spirit was ‘at an all-time high’ with swimmers cheering each other on and working to maintain their team-mates’ morale.

The girls’ 12-13yrs 100m butterfly was the ultimate highlight as Fern Duesbury, Nuala O’Keefe and Alice Forster produced a clean sweep of the medals, winning gold, silver and bronze respectively.

Duesbury’s win was Poole’s only gold but there were silver medals aplenty including four from Kieran Duffy for his second places in the 10-11yrs 50m freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke and 100m butterfly.

Amelia Wingrove won silver in the 9yrs 50m backstroke and butterfly and bronze in the 50m freestyle.

Ben Sharland matched this tally with second places in the 12-13yrs 50m freestyle and 100m breaststroke and third in the 100m but terfly.

Louis Dunning added to the silver tally with second place in the 10-11yrs 100m backstroke.

Isabelle Richens won double bronze in the 10-11yrs 50 and 100m backstroke.

Bronze also went to Lorna Webb in the 9yrs 50m breaststroke, Finley Chandler in the 9yrs 50m freestyle and Jasmine Wong in the 10-11yrs 50m freestyle.

  •  A depleted Dorset team over came a flurry of late withdrawals to achieve a top-half finish in the ASA National Inter-county Masters competition.

Although the men’s team was close to full-strength, six withdrawals in as many days due to illness and injury left only nine swimmers to cover 64 women’s swims.

Despite this Dorset managed to compete in all 68 events and came close to matching their 2013 result with third against the other five South West counties at Weston-super-Mare and 13th out 30 English counties after times were fed into a computer to produce a ‘virtual’ gala result.

Dorset were second and 10th last year.

Dorset’s oldest lady, former Channel swimmer Linda Ashore, 68, was involved in four wins in the South West gala – the 65/o freestyle and breaststroke and both 260yrs mixed relays with Helen Dickins, Lawrie Dodds and Peter Waddell.

Other winners were Dickins in the 55/o breaststroke, Hannah Wiltshire in the 25/o breaststroke, British masters record holder Nick Vaughan in the 45/o freestyle and butterfly and backstrokers Andy Small (45/o) and Keith Tyler (35/o).

Small was Dorset’s only winner in the national results.

South West result: 1 Devon 343, 2 Gloucs 281, 3 Dorset 258, 4 Wilts 218, 5 Somerset 162, 6 Cornwall 189.

National result: 1 Yorks 1736.5, 2 Warwicks 1618, 3 Sussex 1613, 4 Devon 1457, 5 Cheshire 1419.5, 6 Hants 1379.5, 7 Berks & S Bucks 1202.5, 8 Gloucs 1131.5, 9 Worcs 1129, 10 Derbys 1125.5, 11 Beds 1122.5, 12 Norfolk 1100.5, 13 Dorset 1029.5, 14 Cambs 1022, 15 Northumberland & Durham 1021, 16 Kent 1000, 17 Herts 972, 18 Suffolk 951, 19 Essex 928.5, 20 Lancs 898, 21 Wilts 890.5, 22 Notts 731, 23 Somerset 677, 24 Leics 613, 25 Oxford & N Bucks 609.5, 26 Northants 571.5, 27 Cornwall 536, 28 Staffs 408, 29 Lincs 164.5.