Leatherhead Swimming Club’s girls' medley team are celebrating the club’s first-ever medal success at the 2009 National Youth Swimming Championships, held at Ponds Forge International pool, Sheffield.

The club won bronze in the fiercely fought 4 x 100m medley relay.

The team, comprising Charlotte Hobbs, 16y (backstroke), Chloe Bean, 14y (breaststroke), Grace Archer, 17y (butterfly) and Hannah Shore, 16y (front crawl) beat 27 other teams from around the country and achieved an outstanding 10 second PB of 4min 19.06s.

Breaststroke specialist and youngest team member, Chloe Bean, achieved 4th place in the 14-15y 200m breaststroke in a time of 2min 38.81s, the second fastest recorded for a 14-year old.

Her success was matched by nationals veteran18year old Sam Crowther who came 4th in the 17-18y 200m breaststroke in a time of 2min 21.41s.

Other finalists included sixteen year old Charlotte Hobbs who came fifth in the 16-17y 200m backstroke (2min 18.19s) knocking a staggering 3.98 off her PB.

Hannah Shore (16y) made it into two finals, the 16-17y 200m butterfly where she achieved 6th position (2 min 18.84s), and the 16-17y 100m butterfly where she came 10th in a time of 1 min 3.86s.

Freestyler Matt Breckon (18y) came 6th in the 17-18y 1500m freestyle and 7th in the 17-18y 800m freestyle. Charlotte Robertson (17y), also a freestyle specialist, came 8th in the 16-17y 800m freestyle.

17year-old Grace Archer also swam in two finals, coming 9th in both the 200 butterfly (2:20.40s) and 100m butterfly (1 min 3.65s).

The girls 4 x 200m freestyle relay team also made it through to the finals, where they came a very credible 6th in a time of 8min 27.76s.

Semi-finalists: Charlotte Hobbs (11th in the 16-17y 100m backstroke; 14th in the 16-17y 200m freestyle) , Tom Godfrey (14th in the 15-16y 100m breaststroke), Sam Crowther (14th in the 17-18y 100m breaststroke), Liam Mellet (15th in the 15-16y 50m freestyle), Charlotte Robertson (17th in the 16-17y 200m freestyle) and Hannah Shore (18th in the 16-17y 100m freestyle).

The previous week, younger members of the club competed in the National Age group Championships also held in Sheffield.

There were notable performances by Nicola Cooke (8th in the 13y 800m frestyle:9min 26.57s) and Sid Howes (10th in the 14y 1500m freestyle: 16 min 55.65).