Head coach Dave Calleja hailed the improvement of his UEA City of Norwich Swimming Club swimmers after a number of impressive performances at the regional youth championships held at the university.

Head coach Dave Calleja hailed the improvement of his UEA City of Norwich Swimming Club swimmers after a number of impressive performances at the regional youth championships held at the university.

Calleja believes the squad's level of performances justified some major changes made to the programmes of each swimmer over the last 12 months and added that a number of the team are now reaching their full potential.

“We were actually competitive this year and we did not appear to be so much the poor relations from last year,” he said. “The squad has made a lot of progress in 12 months and it has shown that if you work hard then you will get results.

“The work ethic in the programme has changed and there is much more discipline and ambition among our swimmers. They really did start to believe in themselves. We have made a lot of changes to the programme and at times it has been an uncomfortable ride.

“But there are people who have stepped up to the plate and they are the ones getting the rewards. We have showed that if you are prepared to put in the hard work you will get the rewards.

“Everyone that swam got a personal best and there was generally a huge improvement from the swimmers.”

Eighteen swimmers aged 14 upwards from the club took part in the ASA East Region Championships at the UEA Sportspark. The championships attract the top swimmers from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and represent the highest level of competition short of the national championships. Just in order to be eligible to compete swimmers have to achieve competitive qualifying times at meets earlier in the season.

After three days of intense competition nine of the 18 UEA City of Norwich swimmers came away with handfuls of silverware, most notably Tom Hollingsworth (17 and over) who cleaned up, taking gold in the 200m butterfly, 100 butterfly, 50m butterfly, 200m IM and 400m IM, silver in the 100m backstroke and 50m backstroke and bronze in the 200m backstroke

Results: Laura Ingleson - (16 and over) gold in the 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle, silver in the 50m backstroke and bronze in the 200m freestyle; Claire Barron (16 and over) gold in the 200m breastroke, 200m freestyle, and 50m breastroke and silver in the 100m breastroke and 400m freestyle; Nick Thompson - (16 and under) gold in the gruelling 1500 freestyle and bronze in the 200m breaststroke and 400 IM; Sam Heard - (17 and over) silver in the 400m freestyle and bronze in the 1500m freestyle and 200m freestyle; Chloe Pellican (14/15) silver in the 100m breastroke and 200 IM; Lewis Mattin (17 and over) bronze in the 800m freestyle and 200 fly; Sam Spaul (17 and over) bronze in the 400m freestyle; Tommy Bochmann (17 and over) bronze in the 400m IM.