TOTTON teenager Alex Savage is the new British junior champion in the 200m individual medley.

She went one better than last year to collect the top Under-16 trophy for the event at the British Long Course. Championships in Norwich.

The 15-year-old's success came just days after she completed an amazing week at the National Age Group Championships in Sheffield, where she was never out of the first three to collect four gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Savage, who swims for Ferndown Otters and City of Southampton, recorded a time of 2min 20.30sec.

She said: "I was pleased to win the junior title but not too happy with my time. When I saw the clock, I thought I'd be lucky to get in the first three.

"I was on a high last week and I think it's caught up with me now."

Ferndown coach Tony Watson said: "Alex has come a long way in the last year.

"She deserves all the success that she can gain because she is working so hard - she takes advice really easily.

"Whatever you ask her to do, she will apply it. She always gives of her best."

Ringwood 17-year-old Holly Fox, who beat Savage to the same British junior title last December but is now ineligible, had something of her own to celebrate in the same event.

She finished fourth in the final but her time of 2:15.62 will make her the first swimmer to qualify for the European short course championships under new selection criteria designed to fast-track youngsters to the top.

Fox, who swims for Reading, was inside the qualifying time for Under-18 swimmers so can expect to leapfrog the older girls who finished second and third to join the senior team which heads for Antwerp in December.

She was also fifth in the 200m butterfly in 2:15.23 but, in this, there was a 17-year-old ahead of her.