Chelmsford Swimming Club have been celebrating its best Essex county championships performance for many years.

The club enjoyed some superb results and broke 20 club records on the way.

A total of 15 swimmers took part in 65 swims, achieving top three places in 17 events and top six places in another 17.

Ruth Fay made the top six in 11 events, taking second place in four of them and breaking no less than 12 club records.

She is within two seconds of the national qualifying time in the 200 individual medley and 200m freestyle, while Georgina Ball swam in seven events, qualified for six finals and took third place in the 16 year 200m freestyle.

Joshua Ker also took his 200m butterfly time to within two seconds of a national time and his 100m butterfly to within one second, as he finished with a third place.

Ker also went under one minute in the 100m freestlye for the first time, taking fifth place.

Abigail Watson, 9, came second in the 200m and 400m freestyle and third in the 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m IM. She broke her own club records in all five events.

Meanwhile Hannah Fay won three bronze medals in the two breaststroke events and the 100m freestyle.

She came fourth in the 200IM, breaking the club record before her elder sister Ruth took it from her, whileRyan Ince swam in the Essex finals in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle and narrowly missed sixth place in the 400m freestyle.

Sarah Fay, despite being unwell recently, still managed to come fifth in the final of the 200m breaststroke.

Sam Edwards broke the club under-11 200IM record but was denied a chance to compete in his favourite 100m breaststroke event which last year saw him take fifth place due to a change of date by Essex County ASA.

Darran Ince, Adam Ferrier and men's captain Craig Campion all swam personal bests to finish well inside their Essex qualifying times - as did ladies' captain Kate Dempster, first-time Essex qualifier Caroline Manning and Sara Millican.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.