KIERAN Bird and Bethany Taylor won gold for Bicester Blue Fins at the South Region Championships in Portsmouth.

Bird continued his good form by coming first in the 17 & over 1500m freestyle final

Bethany Taylor performed brilliantly with two medals in the disability category.

She won gold in the 100m freestyle in a personal best time of 1min 29.26secs and followed it with silver in the

100m breaststroke final in another pb of 2.01.33.

Tom Thornley shone with two silver medals in the 17 & over 100m and 200m backstroke finals, having won his heats in fast times.

Bicester’s other medal came from Oliver Inness, who took bronze in the age 15 200m freestyle final.

Josh Rowland, 16, finished seventh in the final of the 100m freestyle, while William Whitley was fourth in the age 15 100m breaststroke final.

The championships continue this weekend at the K2 Pool in Crawley for age 11-14 swimmers.

Head coach Craig Oliver said: “It was wonderful to see how our small club can provide medals and depth at both age group and youth swimming.”

SPURRED on by the storm that brought crashing thunder to the Leys Pool, City of Oxford youngsters put in some lightning-fast swims in the last development meet of the season.

Lachlan Middleton knocked more than 15 seconds off his previous best time to finish second fastest in the nine-year-old age category.

In the girls’ 100m breaststroke, Oxford swimmers finished fastest in each of the four youngest age categories through Nalinratn (Pearl) Sophastienphong, eight, Juliet Anthony, nine, Lily Brabbin, 10, and Rosie Hilton-Dew, 11.

Among the 12-year-olds, Diego Bravo and Benjamin Holmes finished second and third in the 50m freestyle.

Oxford took a clean sweep of the top four in the girls’ 200m backstroke event led by 11-year-old Libby Gotta, who slashed her PB by more than 27 seconds.

She was followed home by Grace O’Gorman, Ellen Grainger and Stephanie Jervis, who all knocked big chunks off their previous best times to finish behind her.

The boys’ 100m breaststroke saw Joseph Watkiss, ten, become the fastest by more than four seconds

Mihailo Petrovic (12) came second in his age group.

The girls’ 50m butterfly, provided a fitting climax to the meet.

Grace O’Gorman, 11, snatched first place while there were runners-up positions from Enalinratn Sophastienphong, eight, Ella Joyce, nine, and ten-year-old Megan Peake.