THE Tornadoes of South Dorset had a successful 2016 County Championships.

The club took 24 swimmers and they achieved two gold medals, 10 silver, and nine bronze medals, plus two bronze junior championship medals for Josh Frampton, a first time on the county rostrum for the ever-improving swimmer.

The overall performance by the club was very good and a top-five finish behind the four larger east-based clubs was the reward.

The 76 per cent in personal best swims was also impressive, with every swimmer taking PB’s away with them.

There were also 15 regional qualifying times and 21 regional considerations.

This was a very good event for all the Tornadoes’ swimmers, but special mention must go to the medal winners, Charlie Rowe, Josh Rowe, Josh Frampton, Ollie Mills for the boys and Eve Hewett and Emma Perkins for the girls.

Regional times were achieved by Charlie Rowe, Josh Rowe, Josh Frampton, Charlie Richards, Mills, Abigail Barnes, Jessica Gale, Hewett, Freya Stanger, Tabitha Samouelle, and Bethany Firth.

This year British swimming has made many changes to the way counties were run. All of the age groups were faced with finals to contend with, so it was good to see many young Tornadoes’ swimmers making the finals and coming away from them with more PBs.

Head coach Chris Beal said: “This was a great start to the season and has set them up well. Looking at how they all swam there are certainly more regional times still to be achieved.

“The training has been going well and the swimmers are now focusing on Plymouth, Hengrove and Millfield where the regionals will take place in May.”