SKIPTON Swimming Club returned numerous personal bests, top ten finishes and regional qualifying times from the 17 swimmers competing in the first leg of the Yorkshire Winter competition at the John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds.

The younger swimmers made an impressive start to the level two short course meet.

Leading the way was 12-year-old Jack Jenkinson, who swam in five events achieving personal bests and making the finals in each race.

Jack claimed silver medals in both the 100m Freestyle and 100m Fly touching in a time of 1.01.57 and 1.09.99 respectively.

Jack also took bronze in the 50m Fly with a time of 31.91 seconds and came ninth in the 50m Backstroke in 34.91 and tenth in the 50m Breaststroke in 40:66 seconds.

Clubmate Katie Simpson, 11, also tasted Yorkshire Winter success, achieving new personal-best times in all seven of her qualifying events. Her stand out performance was taking fourth place in the 50m breaststroke with a time of 39.60 seconds. She was also a finalist in a further three events, being eighth in the 100m Breaststroke and 50m Fly and tenth in the 50m Freestyle.

Twelve-year-old Lily Pratt had her most successful Yorkshire competition to date. She achieved personal bests in seven events, finishing eighth in both the 50m and 100m Freestyle and eighth in the 100m Backstroke where she knocked three seconds of her previous personal best with a time of 1.13.03.

Kaye Fenton, 12, qualified for eight events and secured personal bests in all but one. Fenton stood out in her Freestyle events and reached the finals of both, claiming seventh place in the 50m Freestyle and tenth place in the 100m event.

Keelan Behan qualified for five events, securing personal bests in all of them and taking two top ten finishes.

Keelan took eighth place in the 50m Breaststroke touching in a time of 39.96 seconds and tenth place in the 50m Freestyle with a time of 31.28 seconds.

Teammate Sam Smith, 11, competed in eight events and improved his personal best times in all but one.

Most noteworthy improvement was the 100m Breaststroke where he clocked 1.39.54 knocking 5.66 seconds off his time.

Ten-year-old Harry Cockburn had his most successful competition to date. He qualified for eight events and secured personal bests in all but one. His stand out performance came in the 100m Backstroke event where he smashed his previous time by 8.29 seconds and finished in 1.32.44.

Eleven-year-old Joe Burgess swam straight into the final of the 50m Backstroke touching in 36.77 seconds and coming seventh overall.

Skipton had two Yorkshire debutants, Lily Long-Prior, 10, and Amelia Redfearn, 10, who achieved personal bests in their first county meet.

Many performances were strong enough to advance to the North East Regional Championships later this year. Katie Simpson, Keelan Behan, Sam Smith and Joe Burgess will all make their regional debuts alongside Jack Jenkinson, Will Oliver, Lily Pratt and Kaye Fenton who will compete for the second year in succession.

The older age group club swimmers will travel to Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield next month to compete in the second part of the Yorkshire Winter competition.