A group of Ulverston Otters swimmers made the trip to Workington to participate in the Cumbria A.S.A. Winter Meet having achieved qualifying times during this year's season.

With such a high class entry, they found awards hard to come by and had varied success with some golds and a large number of minor places plus P.B.s and qualifying times for the 2018 Counties Age Group Competitions and Championships.

Ethan Alpress had a fair degree of success, especially in the 50 butterfly and 100 individual medley. The butterfly brought out his sprinting skills, which he used to great effect. He got a great start and kept up the pressure over the two lengths and into the pressure zone he injected more pace and hit the pads in a perfect finish to take gold.

Taking on the medley, he put together an immaculate display of the four strokes to take another gold medal.

He then added three silvers and a bronze to his collection from his backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

14-year-old Alex Thompson also got into gold medal mode at freestyle when he took on the 50m sprint. His start was explosive and put him on the front and he dictated the race from then on. A brilliant turn kept him in control and he timed his finish to perfection for an impressive win.

He then gave a repeat performance in the 100m event where he got better and better as the race progressed and staying perfectly composed he produced another storming finish that his opponents were unable to match.

He then went on to take the silver medal for his 50 backstroke and a bronze for the 100 individual medley.

The only other gold medallist was Jack McMullen who drove his way to an outstanding win in the 100 freestyle with a powerful swim.

He too was to follow this up with silver medal efforts for 50 and 100 backstroke and bronze for 100 breaststroke.

Two swimmers, Indya Sharp and Felicity Boyle, both must have felt somewhat disappointed as they produced brilliant swims in numerous events but then had to settle for minor place awards. Boyle finished the meet with a total of nine medals six of which were silver. Her 100 breaststroke was so close to a win that she was given an equal time with the winner.

At 100 individual medley she was involved in another desperate finish where she was just touched out of the gold by a fraction of a second.

Another silver came from a magnificent effort in the gruelling 400m individual medley. She completed her programme with a further trio of bronze medals.

14-year-old Indya Sharp had a similar set of results, picking up 5 Silver and 3 Bronze. In a group of top class swimmers she came up with her usual series of challenges and her finest display was in the 200 Breaststroke where she found that little extra in the finish to snatch the Silver medal.

A series of quality swims from Phillip Crayston, Anna Morrison, Orianne Sharp, Grace Weaver, Imogen Stoker, Annabel Crayston, Abigail Miller and Nathan Lee-Cheong brought them minor place medals to complete a highly satisfactory performance from the squad.