THE annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements of young local club swimmers was held recently at Malborough Village Hall.

Kingsbridge Kingfishers Swimming Club (KKSC), which is based at Quayside Leisure Centre in Kingsbridge, first started in 1998 with the opening of the new 25-metre pool.

And, since then, the club has gone from strength to strength.

February is always an important time of year for the club as that is when they hold their annual awards ceremony. This recognises the achievements of all the swimmers who have trained so hard during the year.

It is also when the results of the club championships, held back in November, are announced and the swimmers are awarded with certificates and trophies to celebrate their aquatic achievements.

The club championships are very intense, with over 130 swimmers competing against each other in literally hundreds of races.

They take place over two weeks and every swimmer is expected to enter at least one race in each stroke.

Swimmers are allocated points according to the position they come within their own age group, with the three swimmers achieving the highest number of points winning the ultimate prize of coming first, second or third in their age group.

This year's age-group winners were: Age eight girls, Maddie Gautier; age nine girls, Ellie Langman; age 10 girls, Heather Mockridge; age 11 girls, Charlotte Blake; age 12 girls, Emily Lawrence; age 13 girls, Darcy Wall; age 14 girls, Emma Noyce; and age 15 and over, Hayley Arthur.

In the boys' competition, the results were: Age eight boys, Kyle Dickens; age nine boys, Finn Whelan; age 10 boys, Ethan Charlton; age 11 boys, Ben Cusack; age 12 boys, Seb Dickens; age 13 boys, Jacob Seldon; age 14 boys, Ben King; age 15 boys, Robert Dorey; and age 16 and over, Angus Lee.

The club is divided into three squads – bronze, silver and gold.

All new swimmers start in bronze squad and work their way up through the ranks until they reach gold squad, at which time many of them will also be competing in county-level galas and competitions. Following the presentation of the age-group awards, one swimmer is selected from each of the three squads for overall achievement and commitment during the year.

This year the shields for each squad went to: Ellie Langman (bronze squad); Amy Edmonds (silver squad); and Jenny Grace (gold squad).

Head swimming coach Karen Dorey and assistant coach Greg King handed out the awards and also announced the wonderful news that club swimmer Laker Wong had qualified for the Olympic swimming trials this year at the age of 15.

What a fantastic personal achievement for him and what a great accolade for this very hard-working and successful swimming club.

Laker was also presented with a special new award for the 'swimmer's swimmer, which is voted for by all of his peers at the club.