DAVID Middleton and George Parsons were the heroes of the Ledbury and District swimming squad after accumulating sufficient points to be heralded in the top eight in their age group at the prestigious Midland District championships.

During the two weekends of competition at Coventry, points are awarded for times recorded in a freestyle, individual medley and stroke event.

For the first time ever, Ledbury had two swimmers awarded with trophies, tee- shirts and certificates acknowledging their fantastic performances. George finished in 5th place and David 7th, following some astounding swims and gold medals for both boys.

David proved himself as the fastest 10- year-old in the district when he was a clear winner of the 100m freestyle. This followed a brilliant performance in which he won his heat by some five metres and took over three seconds of his previous best time. It was an anxious wait while all 39 qualifiers had swum and the results were announced to confirm that David was the winner by over a second. George was just outside his best time in this event and finished 21st.

George was under pressure in his 200m breaststroke event, having won the 100m race the previous weekend. Displaying great maturity, he kept his nerves in check to stay focused while watching the previous heats and checking the winning times on the electronic scoreboard.

Realising he would need a new personal best he attacked the race right from the first stroke and worked solidly throughout, going out in front and maintaining a lead until the touch, delighted to see he had swum three seconds faster than ever before and secured the winning place and the much coveted gold medal.

In the same event, team-mate David Middleton was pleased with his heat winning with a huge four and a half second pb, but was then disappointed to see Aaron Lee, from Luton, better the time by only 7/100ths of a second to take the silver medal, with David collecting the bronze.

Sam Parsons also swam in this event and sent out a clear signal to brother George that he is chasing hard following a fantastic swim, reducing his previous long course time by over four seconds and finishing in a very commendable 10th place.

David and George both qualified for the 200m individual medley final, David finished in 4th place with George 5th with both recording personal best times. Although swimming faster times than ever before, David was disappointed to finish in 11th place in both the 200m freestyle and the 100m backstroke, with George 16th and 34th in the same events.

Thomas Stokes represented LADASC in the 12 years age group. His best event of the weekend was the 400m individual medley, in which he already has a national qualifying time. He set out hard on the first 100m, the butterfly, keeping with the leaders he used the backstroke to relax and try to recover his breathing ready for maximum effort in the second half of the race.

His tactics paid off. He overtook all the other competitors on the breaststroke to keep his lead on the final two lengths of front crawl, finishing 5th overall with a two and a half second improved best time which will improve his heat position at the National Championships at Ponds Forge, Sheffield in August.

Just off the mark in his backstroke events, he still finished a praiseworthy 7th in the 200m and 8th in the 100m race. He finished 11th overall in the championship points table.

Struggling to find form since the County Championships in February, all the LADASC coaches and swimmers were elated to see James Middleton have a great 200m freestyle swim gaining a new best time some five seconds faster than his previous long course swim, in the same pool last month.

Keeping the LADASC profile high in the running commentary, the girls performed extremely well. Inspired by the performance of Sam and George, sisters Rose and Alice Parsons made it a true family celebration both attaining new best times in both the 200m and 100m breaststroke races.

The entire squad were thrilled to see Rose swim the best race of her life swimming out in front from an outside lane to challenge the leaders over the four lengths of this 50m pool to finish 4th out of the 42 entrants in an amazing 13 second improved time. Alice finished 10th with team mate Lucy Stokes 11th.

Swimming in the next age group 11 year old Emma Fitzpatrick was 25th also in a new best time. In the shorter race Rose was 8th, Lucy 20th, Alice 22nd and Emma 25th.

Caitlin Clark and Lucy Stokes swam the 100m freestyle with a new personal best for Caitlin, and Patty Holloway and Lucy Stokes competed in the 200m Individual Medley. All three girls found it very tough trying to cope with both the 50m pool and nerves for such a big occasion and did exceedingly well not to be overwhelmed and concentrate on their swimming, and although a little disheartened with their times will have gained valuable experience competing at such a high level.

Coach Viv Jones said: "All the 12 swimmers are to be congratulated, at last LADASC is achieving the recognition it deserves and with four swimmers competing in the county team next weekend I am hopeful that we will receive more help to enable the swimmers to progress."