A COUNTY record held by Olympian Karen Legg was one of seven to fall as Dorset’s high fliers battled with the best in the west.
Internationals Jazz McCrea and Jacob Peters and national age group champions Kayla van der Merwe and Oli Fairman all set short-course records in the South West Winter Championship at Millfield.
Poole’s McCrea, 17, won a medal of each colour, setting her Dorset senior record with a silver-winning 27.37 in the 50m butterfly.
The time shaved 0.06sec off the previous mark, held by Ferndown Otters’ Legg since 2003.
The seven-times Commonwealth Games medallist still has a monopoly on all eight senior Dorset 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle records.
McCrea also won gold in the 50m freestyle in 25.84 – 0.13sec outside Legg’s 2001 record – and bronze in the 100m individual medley.
The IM silver went to Bournemouth Collegiate School’s Kayla van der Merwe in 1:03.97, breaking World Championship swimmer Alex Savage’s Dorset junior record from 2002.
She also carved 0.63sec off former ASA champion Charlotte Evans’s county junior record with 32.16 in the 50m breaststroke heats but pulled out of the final due to illness. It was also a south west junior record.
Her withdrawal cleared the way for Wareham’s Tanya Blanchard to claim the junior gold in 32.52, which was also inside the previous records.
Van der Merwe also took silver in the 100m breaststroke, the event in which she broke the British junior record last month.
In his only event at Millfield, Poole’s Commonwealth Games finalist Jacob Peters shaved 0.06sec off Jay Lelliott’s Dorset record to win silver in the men’s 50m freestyle in 22.69.
Team-mate Oli Fairman contributed three times to the flurry of county records.
He lowered the junior 200m backstroke mark to 2:03.63 in the heats and 2:01.68 in the final, a five-second improvement on former national age group champion Alan Wong’s 2013 record.
Fairman’s 200m IM time of 2:09.50 was also a junior record.
Thea O’Keefe won an 800m freestyle thriller to earn Poole a second gold, turning third at the halfway point before hitting the front.
Robbie Hemmings, 14, added a silver to the Poole haul in the junior 50m backstroke.
Swim Bournemouth’s Ella Chown and Amy Brown won seven medals between them.
Chown was second in the junior 50m and 100m butterfly and third in a 50m freestyle in which she dipped below 27 seconds for the first time.
She also made the 200m butterfly and 100m breaststroke finals.
Brown won silver in the junior 100m breaststroke and 400m IM and bronze in the 50m and 200m backstroke.
Drew McGregor added a silver in the junior 200m breaststroke.
Swim Bournemouth’s S14 para-swimmer George Kelman-Johns won gold in the 100m backstroke and 200m IM and silver in the 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly.
Seagulls’ Sonny Chamberlain-Hyde won bronze in the 100m and 200m backstroke with club-mate Same Small taking bronze in the 50m freestyle.
Swim Bournemouth’s Phoebe Kelman-Johns lowered her PB by six seconds to make the 100m breaststroke final.
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