Skelmorlie swimmer Emma Binnie swept the board at the Renfrew Baths Mini Meet winning seven gold medals.
The nine year old won every race she entered at the Portal in Irvine, helping the North Ayrshire Swimming team to a haul of 50 medals, with Junior Coach, Alan Dickson, picking out her victory in the 100m fly, with a 1.7 second improvement, as her best performance.
“I’ve been working with her a lot on body position and it was really heartening to see she’s taken on board the advice, listened and changed the way she’s swimming to great effect,” says Alan.
Twin brother, Dean, made sure that he got to stand on the podium too, claiming a bronze medal in the 100m backstroke and just missing out in the 100m freestyle where he came in 4th.
Fairlie’s Sarah Short returned to form, taking home four medals. The 10-year-old collected a gold in the 50m breaststroke, a silver in the longer 100m event, and bronzes in 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke.
Alan told us: “Sarah hasn’t competed for quite a while because of a niggling shoulder injury and it was great to see her back racing.
“Fingers crossed that’s behind her now. She swam very well, especially her 50m back and 50m fly where she smashed the consideration time and, due to the rules of the event, was ‘too fast’ to be awarded the gold medal”
“Angus Wark, from West Kilbride, has also been struggling with a persistent illness these last few months and it was great to see him roaring back with a gold in the 100m individual medley, which was well deserved.”
He also took two bronze medals in the 100m fly and breaststroke events for 10-year-olds.
“Our success at the meet vindicates our decision to do away with the 25m race option in the club championships because the kids all got up there and were tackling events like the 100m IM and 50m fly and everyone just got on with it and knew what was expected.”
Nine-year-old Kouper Sloss, from Largs, made three trips to the podium, winning a silver medal in the 100m backstroke after setting a huge 14 second PB in the 100m freestyle to get a bronze medal, and another in the 50m race.
Rose Smith, who’s 8 and also from Largs, took home a bronze medal for her 100m freestyle.
Sunday saw their older teammates racing in the Junior Meet part of the weekend with Largs swimmer Matthew Shanks winning a gold medal in the 100m backstroke for 14 -year-olds with a 4 second PB
12-year-old Molly Sutherland, from Fairlie, also had a cracking swim in the 200m individual medley with a 12 seconds personal best to seal a bronze medal.
Summing up the weekend Alan Dickson says: “It was a really positive weekend with kids who are on the fringes of West District level and hopefully they’ll be able to make the step up later in the year.”