Dartmoor Darts Aquatic, based at the Mount Kelly Swim Centre in Tavistock, have had a sensational summer both nationally and internationally.

The swimmers, who are all from the Tavistock, Plymouth, Ivybridge and Plympton areas, travelled to Malta, Glasgow, Sheffield and Baku in Azerbaijan.

The successes for the Dartmoor Darts swimmers first started with JP Davies, aged 15, at the Maltese Nationals. He achieved fantastic personals bests in all his events, winning two gold medals in the 100m and 200m backstroke, three silver (200m freestyle, 50m freestyle and 4 x 200 intermediate), three bronze medals (50m fly, 200m IM and 100m backstroke).

Matthew Plumb, (17) Shay Brent (15), Emily Morgan-Hughes (15) and Hollie Steer (17) competed at the British Summer National Championships in Glasgow.

Emily was eighth in the breaststroke finals with a personal in the 50m event and 11th in the 200m; Hollie Steer finishing 13th in the 100m breaststroke; Shay Brent was 12th in the 200m butterfly with a PB while Matthew Plumb had a good race in the 50m freestyle.

Cameron Williams (15) who had qualified for the British Summer Nationals, travelled to the European Youth Olympic Festival in Baku, Azerbaijan. His first selection for Team GB saw him winning three silver medals, two of which were in the team relays and one in the 100m breaststroke where he broke the 15 year British record.  Cameron now holds the British Record for the 13yr, 14yr and 15yr age groups for this event.

There was further success in the pool at the English Summer Championships in Sheffield the following week, with all swimmers achieving personal bests and adding to the DDA medal cabinet.

Fritz Dietz won a silver medal in the 50m backstroke. Hollie Steer (17) won a silver in the 50m breaststroke, also her first national medal. Cameron Williams won two bronze medals in the 50m backstroke and the 50m freestyle and Matthew Plumb was eighth in the 50m butterfly.

Performance coach Matthew Henry (29) took to the water on the final day of the competition, having come out of retirement from competing, and not only achieved a lifetime best but won the gold medal in the 50m butterfly in 25.04.

All swimmers are delighted to finish the season on a real high and looking forward to some time off, while excited about the short course season this autumn and what the future holds.

Performance Coach Matthew Henry is also delighted with the swimmers success.

He said: ‘What an end to the season. Anyone who is involved with swimming understands the dedication and commitment that it takes to swim at the highest level, so it is very satisfying when the years of work pays off.

‘All of our swimmers competing at the National championships managed PBs and we also came away with five medals at the English Championships which was most unexpected.

‘Cameron did fantastically well whilst representing GB for the first time at the European Youth Olympics, winning three silver medals, taking his ranking to 18th in the U19s in Europe in the 100m breaststroke.

‘A well-earned rest is now planned for all the swimmers as we look forward to bettering our achievements again next year.’