Frank Lamb won an incredible ten gold medals as South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club enjoyed an amazing weekend at the Northampton Summer Festival.
The Spalding-based club rose to the occasion at the Corby International Pool with numerous personal best (PB) times and county qualifying times (CQT) achieved en-route to claiming a team total of 51 medals.
But it was ten-year-old Lamb who stole the show with an overall haul of 13 medals from 14 events over the weekend. He won an outstanding ten gold medals, two silver and one bronze to ensure he was named the top ten-year-old boy of the meet.
Lamb showed real improvement in his butterfly swimming, lowering his PB time across all the distances on this stroke.
In the 50m butterfly he posted a time of 38.24secs, while in the 100m butterfly his best time was lowered to 1.25.70mins and in the 200m butterfly he clocked 3.21.55mins.
Lamb also set a strong new PB in the 200m IM with 3.02.92mins and made a huge improvement in his biggest event, the 400m freestyle, where he took 34 seconds off his PB to finish in 5.50.75mins.
Daisy Rummery also had an exceptional weekend in the girls’ 15 years age group – collecting five gold medals and two silvers, while also swimming to a number of new PB times over the course of the competition.
In the 200m backstroke, she lowered her PB time by more than two seconds to stop the clock in a 2.30.99mins to claim her first gold medal of the meet.
There were also significant improvements for Rummery in the freestyle events, with new PB times over the 100m, 200m and 400m distances with times of 1.02.82mins, 2.14.61mins and 4.42.13mins respectively.
Meanwhile, Luke Blanchard showed a return to form in claiming two gold and three silver medals and achieving five new PB times.
Blanchard, who has been focusing on his breaststroke and butterfly swimming, turned in fine performances on these strokes.
In the 100m butterfly there was a personal best time of 1.03.15 and also in the sprint distance the 50m butterfly he posted a new PB of 28.71 seconds.
Luke also produced personal best times across the distances in his 50m and 200m breaststroke with times of 33.88 secs and 2.40.74mins respectively.
One of the highlights of Blanchard’s weekend was a two-second long course PB in the 200m IM (2.22.09mins).
Beatrice Finch produced one of the highlights of the weekend in the 400m IM.
Leading from the start, she was never challenged in her heat extending her lead across all four strokes to touch the wall in first place by an exceptional margin.
Her time of 5.39.25mins was enough to see her win the silver medal in the girls’ 13 years age group.
Finch showed her prowess in the IM events when she stepped down to the 200m distance, where she posted a new long course PB time of 2.42.98mins and claimed the bronze medal in her age group. To round out the weekend she set a new PB time with her fastest ever 50m freestyle (31.02secs).
Sigourney Bolton also produced an outstanding swim and showed her future potential with the club.
At just ten years old and swimming in her first long course competition the little breaststroke specialist sped down the pool in the 50m event to touch home in a new PB of 50.92secs to claim the bronze medal in the ten years age group. 
Other junior swimmers enjoying successes included Oliver Lloyd – who posted his first-ever time in the 100m butterfly of 2.10.93mins to collect a medal for a fifth-place finish.
Lloyd repeated his success in the shorter distance 50m butterfly event, where he lowered his PB time by an excellent three and a half seconds to touch the wall in 50.24secs for another fifth place.
Grace Ravell turned her skills to some first-time events as well and posted new PB times in the 100m breaststroke (2.09.75mins) and 50m backstroke (47.53 secs).
Sophie Wilson set a four-second PB time in the 200m backstroke, coming home strongly in 3.04.81mins to take fifth place.
There were also PB clockings for Teagan Gregg (3.53.47mins) and Lucie Lund, who broke the three-minute mark for the first time with 2.59.14mins.
Lund also produced an outstanding 50m butterfly, lowering her best time by almost a second to touch home in a time of 35.58secs and take a fourth-place finish.
Her final event of the weekend, the 200m freestyle, also saw her lower her best time by four seconds to finish in a strong time of 2.47.17mins.
Older brother Joe Lund was also in action over the weekend. Carrying an injury, he could not participate in his preferred breaststroke events but produced a number of excellent new PB times.
In the 100m butterfly, he posted his fastest-ever time of 1.08.75mins to claim a silver medal and closed out the weekend with a fine sprint in his 50m backstroke, finishing in another lifetime best of 33.44secs for another silver medal.
Elsewhere, Aidan Evans produced two fine performances in the 100m breaststroke where he sped down the pool to lower his PB by a huge margin of six seconds (1.48.00mins) and claim the bronze medal in the boys’ ten years age group.
He was back in action in the 100m freestyle and another fine performance saw him reduce his PB by five seconds to touch the wall in 1.23.53mins for a fourth-place finish.
Anya Strickland had a strong weekend of competition, collecting a hat-trick of medals in the girls’ 13-year age group.
She swam an aggressive 400m freestyle to achieve her target of breaking the five minute barrier for the first time, coming home in a time of 4.59.31mins and taking five seconds off her existing best.
This gave Strickland her first medal of the weekend as she picked up bronze.
There was a second bronze medal in the 100m freestyle where another strong race saw her make the podium in a time of 1.07.02mins.
But Strickland’s stand-out event was the 50m butterfly where she managed to storm down the pool to impressive PB best time of 35.07secs and claim the silver medal in her age group.
Head Coach Keith Haynes was delighted with what he saw from the group.
He said: “The weekend of competition was a real success for the swimmers.
“We saw a lot of new personal best times and it was excellent to see the younger swimmers take to long course competition so well, as for many it was their first time in a fifty metre pool.
“The meet sees the end of the season for many of the club swimmers with the exception of National Championships.
“The work begins now to get ready for next season where South Lincs will be looking for even more impressive results than we have achieved this season.”
