LEDBURY and District swimmers have secured their place in the 'A' final of the PGL league to be held in June, following a third place in the third round held at Cheltenham on Saturday.

With 10 of the regular team swimmers unable to make the fixture it gave the opportunity for some reserves to show their worth and for some relay swimmers to tackle individual races.

Chris Harwood joined the 9 years boys' relay team and put in good times on backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, along with Charlie Green, Daniel Adair and William Brown. They won all four of their age group relays but suffered a disqualification on a stroke technicality in the breaststroke.

The 9 years girls, Caitlin Clark, Lucy Stokes, Amelia Butler and Alice Quigley, were also clear winners in all of their races but lost points with a disqualification for a faulty takeover during the backstroke event.

With both Cheltenham and Gloucester providing fierce competition the points were close for the first half of the gala, but then Cheltenham eased ahead whilst Ledbury and Gloucester frequently changed positions for second and third place with Pershore remaining fourth.

The judging was surprisingly harsh for this B Grade junior event and all teams suffered from some of the 22 disqualifications awarded during the 57 events.

Ledbury swimmers had to swim their best to gain maximum points for a win and first places went to Alison Pudge (13/u butterfly), Chris Leitch (10/u butterfly), Oliver Brown (11/u butterfly), Eloise van Vuren (10/u freestyle) and Chris Tedds (10/u breaststroke), all in new personal best times.

The Docherty quads, Emily (backstroke), Kate (freestyle), Rosie (breaststroke) and Iain (breaststroke) had the rare opportunity of all swimming an individual race in the 12/under age group and all put it to good use by recording personal best times.

Also with some determined swims resulting in new best times were, Sam Parsons, Odge Davey, George Oliver, Emily Klimek, Alicia Green, Patrick Blake, Arron Almond and Claire Powell Tuck.

The final points were, Cheltenham 170, Gloucester 141, Ledbury 139, Pershore 72.