THE NEW Quays pool in Southampton was plunged into the world of competitive swimming when it staged the Hampshire County Amateur Swimming Association's Development Competition.

With a 25-metre pool and separate diving area, The Quays has the capabilities to hold national and international events.

But, for its first competition, it seemed fitting that it should be the venue for Hampshire's development competition - a grass roots event that will allow both the pool and many young swimmers to be tested in the waters of competitive swimming.

This is the fifth year the competition has run and, with the move to Southampton (previously it had been held in Portsmouth), it has made a big splash in the swimming world. Despite the fact that there were around 1,750 individual swims, the organisers were still forced to restrict the number of entries due to massive demand.

For many of the swimmers who did take part, it was their first experience of competition as the emphasis of the event was to encourage youngsters into the sport. With categories starting from under-ten and rising by the year to 15-and-above, it also established new under-ten county champions, being the only event this year to hold a separate event for that age group.

Perhaps more significantly, times set at the event will be considered when estab-lishing the qualifying times for the County Championships in March 2000.

Jane Davies, event organiser and secretary of the Hampshire County Amateur Swimming Association, said about the competition: "It's a brilliant stepping stone for the development of swimming in the area and so it's nice to see the results going right round the clubs.

"Obviously not everyone will feature among the medals but it wasn't unusual to see individual achieve-ments like swimmers improving their own 200m times by as much as 20 seconds. Everybody has their own goals and, by taking part here, many youngsters will be improving personal bests, achieving qualifying times and gaining recognition within their own clubs."

Full results round-up in Saturday's Pink.

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