Sixteen-year-old Leona Jones got the last-ever Southern Counties Youth Championships at Crystal Palace off to a great start for the Evening Post-sponsored Reading Swimming Club with a gold in her top event, the 200 metres breaststroke.

From the autumn the ageing National Sports Centre will host only the new London Regional championships only, with the new Southeast region basing its competitions in Aldershot and Crawley. The district meet is the highest level below the national championships, and only the top rung of county-standard swimmers make the tough entry times – well under 10 per cent of competitive swimmers as a whole.

Jones went into the meet ranked third in the south and 14th nationally for her year in the most recent ASA 200m breaststroke listings, thanks to a 2:46.59 gold-medal swim at January's City of Derby meet in Sheffield (itself a five-second PB), and beat this in Saturday's heat as she recorded 2:45.96. This put her at the head of the 17-strong field, but needing to do it again in the eight-lane final.

Jones put in a career best swim to win a great tussle with regular local rival Anna Miller of Wycombe. Miller had the edge at the mid-point by just four hundredths, but Jones came back stronger to take the gold in 2:44.24 to 2:44.80, with Kirsty Ager of Kent club Black Lion third.

This wasn't the only medal of the day for Jones, who also collected a 200m individual medley bronze after a two-second-plus PB of 2:32.16 in her heat. Clubmate Emma Zadrozny, 17, also made the IM final, placing eighth.

Among swimmers outside finalist placings on day one but well ranked in large fields, Louisa Downs was 15th among 72 200m freestylers in the 14/15 age group and Russel Korting 12th of 40 boys aged 15 and 16 tackling the 200 IM.

Jones was back in the medals on day two, again in her favourite stroke. This time the battle in the final over 100 metres was with Black Lion’s Ager, with the Reading girl having to settle for silver after narrowly qualifying fastest, but again recording a PB in both swims.

Graeme Thomas’s squad pulled off several further top-10 placings, with 19-year old Matt Sandell one spot outside the 50m freestyle medals in the morning and several swimmers excelling in the demanding 400m IM – two lengths of each stroke in the 50-metre South London pool.

Russel Korting and Garry Dixon went well under the five-minute barrier in finishing fifth and seventh in the 15/16 age group in 4:57.26 and 4:57.78 respectively, Dixon beating five minutes for the first time. York-Peter Kloeppel was down the field, but his 5:23.44 was a new PB by some six seconds

Among the girls, Holly Tanner (5:15.25) and Louisa Downs (5:16.65) placed seventh and eighth in the 14/15 category. Downs thus added the swim to her menu for the summer’s national championships. Zadrozny’s 5:21.04 left her one place and 0.17 seconds outside the medals in the 16/17 group.

Amy Thomas, 16, was Reading 's top 400 IM performer relative to previous best times. Going into the meet with a PB of just under 5:41 , set in Swansea last June, she recorded 5:35.90.

Downs placed 12^th in the 200m fly, while Leanne Haas and Zadrozny both qualified for the 16/17 final, Zadrozny withdrawing but Haas finishing seventh. Amy Kunicki's 2:41.44 was her fastest time in a long-course pool by well over four seconds.

Matt Sandell was Reading’s top performer on day three, with a 100m freestyle bronze in the top age category, after narrowly pipping one of the stars of Reading’s own Easter meet, Guernsey’s Ben Lowndes, to qualify third fastest.

Leanne Haas made the 15/16 100m fly final, qualifying eighth and repeating the placing, while Downs made second reserve for the 14/15 final.

  Downs was then Reading ’s fastest in the girls’ 400 free, ranking eighth in a 4:41, and Korting and Dixon excelled in the boys’ event. In earlier years 15 and 16-year-old boys have swum as separate age groups, but this year’s format mixed the two. Placing fifth and sixth in 4:19.24 and 4:20.74 respectively, the 15-year-olds were beaten only by swimmers from the upper half of the age category.

 Holly Tanner was Reading’s highest placed girl on the day, qualifying fifth in the 200m backstroke in 2:28.15 and improving both time and placing for fourth in the final in 2:27.58.  Jones closed her great weekend with a big PB in an event she doesn’t often tackle, a surprise 200 back finalist and finishing eighth.

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