St Ives were the top scoring club when the region’s best and brightest met at the Amateur Swimming Association East Region Junior Championships over the weekend.

The club fielded six of its top young swimmers at the championships and came away with four gold medals, placing them as top Cambridgeshire team and the 11th best in the region overall.

The championships took place in a 50 metre pool in Norwich and saw more than 30 teams from across the region compete.

James Quinn was the standout performer for the club over the weekend, as he competed in the 50, 100, and 200 metre breast stroke and won all three events, beating the country’s top-ranked swimmer in the process.

James, 13, produced lifetime best swim times of 33 seconds, 1min 13 secs and 2mins 41secs for the 50, 100 and 200 respectively. St Ives head coach Andy Hunter described James’s efforts as an “utterly superb achievement”.

Bethan Endicott, aged 12, improved her ranking from 54th to fourth in the country at 50 metres butterfly after winning the gold medal in the event. She also made the final of the 100 butterfly and swam a lifetime best to take fifth spot in a time of 1min 13secs.

Maddie Todd was the fastest Cambridgeshire swimmer in 50 and 100 breastroke events, while Luke Tunstall, Georgia Spencer and Lottie Flynn savoured their first ever regional events of 50 butterfly and freestyle and all swam strongly.

Elsewhere, 57 swimmers from St Ives competed in the Fenland Open Meet on Sunday at Whittlesey, with a number of lifetime best swims and medals all around.

Veteran 27-year-old swimmer Cathy Thomson won the top open female swimmer at the event, competing the 100 metres in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley in one day.

Coach Hunter said: “Overall it was an excellent weekend of swimming where all the athletes outstripped all expectations at all levels. The coaching staff are extremely proud.”