TORNADOES of South Dorset’s senior swimmers Jenny Scott and club captain Rebecca Beal ended their busy 2015 season in Sheffield at the National Championships.

Scott had qualified for the 50m backstroke at the new British summer championships where the top 24 British swimmers were competing.

She swam a great heat where she broke her own county record with a time of 30.46secs.

This time was good enough to send her to her first national final, where she had qualified as the sixth fastest.

Later the same evening, she lowered her time again, to 30.39secs to finish seventh overall and break her own county record for the second time that day.

A happy swimmer and coach left Sheffield knowing that both would be back at the same pool for the ASA national championships later in the week.

Beal had qualified for the 200m breaststroke, and Scott had qualified in the 50m freestyle, in the ASA summer National Championships where the top 20 English swimmers were competing.

Beal was first to swim this time, but just 30 metres into the swim she knew she was not going to be able to reproduce the great swim that she had done at Cardiff to qualify, she finished 15th overall.

Both swimmer and coach were happy with the result given the amount of training that had been missed due to work commitment leading up to the event.

Scott’s 50m freestyle was on the last day of the competition, and having been a national finalist the week before she knew what to expect this time, with a good heat swim in 27.55secs, she was placed fourth going into the final.

Later that day, a very focused swimmer stood on the blocks for the final with a real chance of a medal, and just 27.11 seconds later she managed to touch the timing pad in third place to pick up her first national medal, a great way to end her season.

Head coach Chris Beal was full of praise for the girls’ efforts. He said: “For Rebecca to have qualified for her first nationals was a great achievement, and to go and compete with some of the best swimmers in the country was a huge reward for her effort.

“And for Jenny to make two national finals and break county records twice in a day was fantastic, then to end the week with a medal was just brilliant, proving that hard work is rewarded.

“I think I was more nervous that last day than Jenny was, I knew what she was about to do, and having told her in June that she would come away with a medal, it was great to see it actually happen.”