Young stars shine bright in record-breaking gala

ASTOUNDINGLY, 13 new gala records were set at the weekend when the two local clubs competed in the annual 50m sprint gala staged by the Guernsey Amateur Swimming Association. In the 10-year-old girls, Kristina Neves obliterated all four records in the age group.

She smashed the butterfly time by six seconds, clocking 33.49sec., and she knocked four seconds off both the backstroke and the breaststroke and a further three off the freestyle to touch in 31.51.

In the same age group, Miles Munro shone, winning all four events and setting new records in the butterfly and freestyle, clocking 36.01 and 32.74 respectively.

Another double record breaker was 13-year-old Victoria Parfit.

She claimed the record previously held by Hannah Lamb in the butterfly to touch in 32.45 and Christine Hume's record in the breaststroke, setting a new mark of 37.63.

Parfit won all her events to take the top-girl award in her age group.

Two further butterfly records were broken - one by Robyn Le Friec in the senior girls' event and the other falling to Matthew Butt in the 14-years group.

Twelve-year-olds David Hall and Luke Belton now have their names down as record holders with the former winning the backstroke in a time of 33.70 and the latter taking the breaststroke in 39.60.

In the same breaststroke event, their teammate, Jamie Salmon, was also inside the previous record in a time of 41.15.

Finally, Joshua Lewis swept away the opposition in the 13-year-olds' freestyle event to set a new mark of 28.23.

Awards were presented to overall winners based on points for each event.

Swimmers achieving maximum points included nine-year-old Chloe Tostevin, who swept the board in her age group, and Ben Lowndes in the 16-and-over category.