The 2008 Devon County Swimming Championships were held over four weekends in February and March at both Tiverton and Plymouth Central Park pools.

Twenty-two Kingsbridge Kingfishers swimmers achieved the tough qualifying standards and set about the task of trying to make the finals – which were to be pretty much fully populated by swimmers from Devon’s top clubs, Plymouth Leander and Kelly College.

It is really very tough for swimmers from the smaller Devon clubs to reach county finals, whilst Plymouth Leander and Kelly continue to pull swimmers into Plymouth College and Kelly College on swimming scholarships from all over the country.

Kingfishers were therefore delighted to see a record 36 swimmers reach finals and to improve on last year’s medal haul (one gold, one silver and five bronze medals) by taking four silvers and 10 bronzes, a record 14 medal haul. Kingfishers also had a substantial number of swimmers placing 7th and 8th in heats making the reserve list for the six-lane finals.

Leading the way for Kingfishers were 15-year-old Aaron Rickhuss and 11-year-old Laker Wong. Aaron made an outstanding eight finals, winning silvers in both the 50m and 100m backstroke and bronzes in the 100m Individual Medley (IM), 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly. Laker made six finals, taking silver in the 200m breastroke, and bronzes in the 200m IM, 200m butterfly and 400m freestyle. Nine of Kingfishers 14 medals were won by these two swimmers alone.

15-year-olds Holly Gunner and Conor Morgan were both double medallists, Holly taking silver in the 50m butterfly and bronze in the 200m butterfly and Conor taking bronze in the gruelling 1500m freestyle and the 50m butterfly. Kingfishers’ final medallist was 11-year-old Richard Forman, who took a bronze in the 200m backstroke.

10-year-olds Harriet Arscott and Ella Paddon also performed well, both making three finals each. Harriet lining up for the final in the 100m IM, 200m breastroke and 200m backstroke and Ella for the 200m breastroke, 200m butterfly and the 400m freestyle. Senior swimmers George Grace and Fiona Wilson both acquitted themselves very well indeed in the Devon Open category, with Fiona making the finals of both the 100m and 200m ladies breastroke and George both the 100m and 200m mens freestyle. George swam an outstanding 54.82s to make the 100m final and swam a huge eight personal best times over the course of the championships.

Kingfishers other finalists were Hester Stembridge and Freddie Richards. Hester made the final of the girls 11/u 400m freestyle and Freddie the final of the girls 13/u 100m breastroke.

A very well done to all Kingfishers medal winners and finalists this year – an immense amount of training and sacrifice goes into competitive swimming at this level and this deserves recognition.

Apart from the medallists and finalists, there were plenty of other personal successes for Kingfishers swimmers at the championships. 14-year-olds Hayley Arthur and Jessica Rigby seemed to have a personal duel going on to see who could swim the most personal best times (PB’s), with an honourable draw being declared at six each. Sam Jones also produced five PB’s with Dan Arscott and Grace Mulligan close behind at four each. 11-year-old Freddie Buckle also produced a good PB in the 200 m breastroke to drop his time well below 3:40.00.

Other Kingfishers swimmers qualifying for and taking part in these Championships were Harry Preston (10), Ben King (11) and the more experienced Greg King, Eleanor Burt and Charlotte Perry.