IN HOT and tiring conditions at Plymouth Life Centre, Kingsbridge’s young swimmers once again rose to the challenge to produce numerous personal best times, county qualifying times and medals.

The Devonport Sizzler is contested by some of the most talented swimmers in the South West, making medals hard to come by. With several swimmers already tired from end-of-year school activities, Kingfishers were able to exceed expectations.

Chloe Morris continued her great form with six gold medals from six events. Possibly the best of all was her final race, the 200 Freestyle, in which she recorded the fastest ever time by a female Kingsbridge swimmer. The event has helped fine-tune her racing ahead of her first appearance at national level next week.

Lucas Quiggin only just missed out on national qualification this year. He proved his quality by winning five gold medals, two silvers and one bronze. The only other swimmer to win multiple gold medals was Romy Stephenson, who was victorious in all of the breaststroke events.

There were also golds for relatively new Kingfishers Hana Wood and Edna Gallego-Cooper in the sprint events. Hana won in the 50m Freestyle, while Edna’s performance in the 50m Butterfly was so fast it was a club record for her age group!

Both girls have recently joined from another swimming club and were excellent team players on poolside.

The 17th and final gold medal was won by Toby Morris in a thrilling 400 IM. Toby bravely took on what is known as one of the toughest events in swimming, completing four lengths of each stroke in under seven minutes.

Older sister Faye also won a medal in the 400 IM, claiming bronze and securing a personal best time of over 30 seconds.

Sadly, this will be Toby and Faye’s last competition for Kingfishers in a while as they will soon move to Somerset.

The most silver medals were won by Lottie Taylor, who is becoming a specialist in the distance freestyle events. Siblings Emilia and Ollie McKinlay also won a silver medal in the distance freestyle events, edging closer to qualifying times for bigger competitions they will want to take part in for 2026.

Two of Kingfishers’ youngest entrants also won silver medals. Ivy Thomson finished second in the 200 IM, while Luna Browne claimed a silver and a club record in the 400 Freestyle. She also won bronze in a very competitive 50 Backstroke.

Rounding out Kingfishers’ many medalists were Fabiano Noto and Eliza Musgrave, whose bronzes both came in the 200 Backstroke.

The Sizzler also proved successful for Lola Carpenter and Isabel Wood, who swam their first county qualifying times of the year in breaststroke events.

Kingfishers’ overall tally of 39 medals is 10 more than the club achieved at the same competition last year. The depth of the squad is now so strong that Kingfishers tend to be one of the bigger squads at open meets - a far cry from three years ago where only a small number of swimmers were competing.

Most Kingfishers will return to racing at the end of September. In the meantime, they have all earned a well-deserved summer rest. The season will finish at the end of the month with Chloe Morris making her nationals debut in Sheffield.

The club would like to place on record its thanks to the volunteer officials, team managers and coaches who help the club compete and our happy swimmers perform at their best.