A QUARTET of Kendal swimmers became the first group from the town to win a county relay competition in five years at Cumbria A.S.A's first set of 2017 championships in the new eight lane pool at Workington.

Kendal swimmers were heavily involved with almost 50 swimmers having qualified in various events throughout the past year.

Leading the line was the 10/12 year-old boy's who opened their account with the 4x50 medley relay before going on to win the 4x50 freestyle relay.

In the medley Jake Gibson (Backstroke) led them out and set a relentless pace. Out of his turn he put in a powerful burst which took him to the pads where Elliot Woodburn (Breaststroke) took over. Woodburn turned on the screws to pull well clear of his rivals and drove forward to hand over to James Escolme (Butterfly) who kept up the pace to leave anchor man Finley Lawson (Freestyle) to go on and complete a fine swim and win with a fair degree of ease.

They repeated their success in the freestyle relay.

Not to be outdone Kendal’s 13/14-year-old girls also got themselves in the mix. In the 4x50 medley Josie Johnson (Backstroke) got a great start, handing over to Megan Jones (Breaststroke) who opened up a gap for Bethan Rowley (Butterfly) to exploit.

Quickly finding her rhythm she held her nerve and swam a fantastic leg. With a gap to spare Caitlin Deegan (Freestyle) took over and maintained the team’s lead.

Into the last length Deegan accelerated away and drove to the finish for a fine win.

Again the same swimmers contested the 4x50 freestyle relay and despite some fine teamwork and takeovers, they had to settle for the runners-up place, having been just touched out by Workington.

In the individual events it was the younger boys who had the greatest success. Woodburn reigned supreme winning every one of his five events in the 12-year-old group. He produced a marvellous set of results at 50 Butterfly, 100 Backstroke, 100 Freestyle, 200 Breaststroke then put all the strokes together to come up with a clear eight second victory over his nearest rival in the 200 Individual Medley. Escolme, 11, was not far behind with brilliant wins in four of his events. His finest effort came from his four second victory in the 200 Breaststroke where he had too much skill for his opponents and timed his swim to the finish with perfection. Gibson proved to be a positive winner at both 100 Backstroke and 100 Freestyle taking early leads and holding off challenges with injections of pace to which his opponents had no answer. Mathew Foster, ten, gave a performance to be proud of with a marvellous swim to win his 50m Butterfly event in style. Three of the squad produced qualifying times for the County Championships finals where Daniel Armstrong (100 Freestyle – 5th), Megan Jones (200 Breaststroke – 6th), and Josie Johnson (50 Butterfly 8th) all swam up to their best times with immaculate performances.