TWELVE Island Age-Group records were broken at Les Quennevais on Saturday in a fantastic weekend for Jersey swimming.

In addition, there were Island Games, National Championship, Southern Regional Championship and numerous Hampshire County Championship qualifying swims. Tigers coach Nathan Jégou said that his competitors had swum consistently well to record PB times in many of their events. ‘You can count on one hand the number of bad swims we’ve seen this weekend,’ he said.

‘Many of these guys don’t race that often, and it’s been such a long time since they last raced. We also rested them slightly before this gala, because there is a heavy programme of events coming up in the new year. We’ve seen some fantastic results this weekend, with some very tough records being smashed and new national times being set.’

The performance of the meet came from 15-year-old Kerrie Smith, who finished top of the pack in the girls’ 14-15 years 100m backstroke in a time of 1.06.35, obliterating Melanie Colter’s 1.08.41 record set in 1997, and easily qualifying for nationals. Smith beat second-placed Sophie Bashforth by six seconds and won the Baker Cup for the outstanding individual swim of the meet.

Pictured: James Le Cornu in action in the 100m breaststroke