Seven up Kristina

KRISTINA NEVES finished the 2009 National Championships in Sheffield with seven gold medals and the title of Britain's finest all-rounder at her age.

Just as she did in 2008, Neves, now 12, topped the Bagcats points aggregate with 2,970 points.

She could even afford to finish the trip to Yorkshire with a poor performance in the 200 individual medley where she didn't qualify for the final.

Her successes, which come on top of landing nine titles at the same event in 2008, have not come easy said her proud parents, Bruno and Michelle, who said the situation in Guernsey makes it extra taxing for their daughter to succeed and, surprisingly, said it has not been a good year for the youngster.

'We are extremely proud of Kristina for what she has achieved at this year's Nationals.

'This has not been a good year for her, for many reasons, one being lack of the high standard of competition back home.

'She has to travel away a lot of the time to compete and also to train which takes its toll being away from home, which is always very hard especially when you are only 12 years of age. Plus there is the lack of pool time and, when you look at other girls for which Kristina competes against, who train in the region of 20 hours a week, she has to work twice as hard.

'So looking back on the year she has had she has done much, much better than we had anticipated'