Winchester City Penguins beat off the challenge of Fareham Nomads to become surprise Hants & South Coast Minor League champions at Woking.

With two-thirds of the gala gone, there were only a few points in it - but victories for departing junior coach Jim Walker in the 100m butterfly, 100m individual medley and 8x25m squadron relay saw Penguins home by 19 points..

That final squadron relay win - just 0.2sec ahead of Nomads - came from Walker, Kim Jenkins, Lewis Dunford, Harriet Pierce, Josh Sweeney, Julia Beckett, Tom Proven and Claire Ireland. Kim Jenk-ins (50m breaststroke - 46.22 pb) and Lewis Dunford (50m butterfly and freestyle) also picked up individual wins - and helped the under-11 squad to three relay victo-ries. Jenkins, with Abi Sweeney, Sarah Kemp, Annabel Kidd and Kirsty Jordan, won both freestyle and medley; Dunford, James Macey, Conrad Langridge, Mark Pritchard and Iain Proven took freestyle gold and medley silver. At under-13 level, Penguins again scooped both medley relays, with Rebecca Pritchard also a double individual winner in the 50m breaststroke and freestyle. The under-15 girls won both freestyle and medley relays, with Rachael Kemp and Julia Beckett adding individual gold in 100m breast-stroke and backstroke.

Fareham Nomads were bridesmaids for the second successive year, but were satisfied with a strong B string performance. Richard O'Donnell picked up a brace of under-13 wins - in the 50m backstroke and butterfly; Sarah Warrener won backstroke gold in the same age group.

Chris Walker left the field trailing over two seconds behind as he won the under-15 100m freestyle in 1.03.37 - then swam a pb 1.21.88 for silver in the 100m breaststroke. Further wins from Nick Barber (under-13 50m freestyle), Ashley Wheatcroft (under-15 100m butterfly - 1.16.19pb), Rob Smith (open 100m breaststroke) and Kirsty Bevis (under-13 50m butterfly) kept Nomads in contention.

Gala 1 result: Winchester City Penguins 221, Fareham Nomads 202, Woking 199, Rushmoor 149, Alton 127, Hart 124

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.