SKIPTON'S swimmers excelled at this year’s Swim England North East Regional Swimming Championships, bringing home a total of eighteen medals including five golds.

Leading the medals table for Skipton was 15-year-old Jack Jenkinson, a student at Ermysteds Grammar School, who qualified for an incredible sixteen events. He opted to swim in four individual events and brought home two gold medals in the 50m and 400m freestyle and two silver medals in the 100m and 200m freestyle. Jack then went on to compete in the age 14/16 years 400m medley & 400m freestyle team events alongside Skipton’s Sam Smith, Zak Sheriff, Keelan Behan & Sean Smith to bring home further medals – a bronze and a silver - for the club.

Next up is Rohan Smith (17) who brought home another two gold medals for the club in his individual 50m and 100m breaststroke events as well as clinching the bronze in the 50m free. There was further success for 19-year old Ned Sharp who struck gold in the 100m fly and scooped a silver in 50m fly. He also reached the final of the 50m freestyle.

Paige Fenton, also 19, brought home two silver medals in the 50m and 100m breaststroke. She also won the bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke.

A stellar performance from 11-year old Stanley Dunne saw him win the silver and bronze medals in 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle respectively. Sean Smith (14) won silver in the 50m breaststroke and Sam Smith, also 14, achieved a bronze in the 100m butterfly.

Spread over three weekends the Championships saw the fastest swimmers from Tyne and Wear, Tees Valley, Northumberland, County Durham, Yorkshire and Humberside come together for a series of high calibre events, which were all live-streamed on You Tube.

The standard of swimming was exceptionally high with an incredible 18 swimmers from Skipton achieving the qualifying times, including four sets of siblings: Stanley and Poppy Dunne, Zak and Roan Sheriff, Rohan and Sean Smith and Kaye and Paige Fenton. They swam alongside team-mates Harry Cockburn, Amelia Redfearn, Ruby Byrne, Jack Jenkinson, Sam Smith, Ned Sharp, Keelhan Behan, Fenella Turner, Lily-Mae Pratt and Joseph Burgess.

The next large-scale event in the club’s calendar will see Skipton’s ‘Sensational Six’ (Sam Smith, Sean Smith, Jack Jenkinson, Rohan Smith, Ned Sharp and Paige Fenton) race in the British Summer Championships which is scheduled to take place at the end of July.

Skipton Swimming Club Head Coach, Ian Scrivin said: “Our swimmers achieved some fantastic results at this year’s regional championships, and they should all be very proud of themselves. We have an exciting summer ahead as it is the first time in three years that the British Summer Championships will be taking place, because of the pandemic. I send my congratulations to all our qualifiers and their team-mates. They all train so incredibly hard, fitting in a relentless training programme around full-time education and other life commitments. They show extraordinary dedication and deserve every success”.

For more information about swimming with Skipton Swimming Club please visit skiptonsc.co.uk