With just two weeks of the New Year gone one Suffolk swimming club had already celebrated success in the pool at a pair of local meets.

St Felix School swimmers first sent a young squad the short distance to Bungay for the Beccles Kingfisher New Year Meet on January 2, with the older swimmers later travelling to Norwich for the City of Norwich Resolution Meet.

The 13 younger swimmers, all under the age of 13, demonstrated the young talent within the squad system – six members of the team were only nine years-of-age.

The aim of the meet was to gain qualifying times for next month’s county championships before the closing date.

This was done with the squad achieving 16 county qualifying times.

Between them the swimmers also picked up 25 gold medals, 18 silvers and 13 bronzes.

County qualifying times were achieved by Clara Watson-Flowers (aged nine), Elijah Britton (nine), Imogen Whyte (10), Jacob Hart (10), Catherine Odell (12), Joshua and Samuel Stephens (12).

The next weekend saw 13 of the older swimmers at the meet in Norwich at the University of East Anglia Sportspark.

At this event the competitors were all aiming to gain East Region qualification times.

Again it was clear to see the training over the Christmas period had paid off with the team winning 32 gold medals, 16 silvers, 10 bronzes and seven ‘speeding tickets’ for swimmers who swam faster than the set times.

A total of 21 regional qualifying times were also achieved.

Joab Carr (11) and Daniel White (12) both gained their first ever regional times in the 50metre, 100m and 200m freestyle events, with Chester Leeming (11) securing another seven in various distances and strokes.

Thirteen-year-olds Freya Lines, Katy Chambers and Ella Toliday also achieved a total of six regional times between them and Sophie Taylor (14) and Maddie Chambers (15) another five.

The squad now prepares to move onto the Suffolk County Championships to be held in Norwich for the 800m and 1500m freestyle events and then Ipswich for the remainder of events.