Records fell at the City of Bradford's annual Christmas Open Swim Meet held at Shipley Pool.

The meet that was billed as Festive Fun and Fast Swimming lived up to its reputation with a tremendous atmosphere that is unique to the Bradford Meet and there were many close attempts at records.

The nearest came from York swimmer Lewis Porlyo in the 13 years boys breaststroke. He missed the record by 0.01 sec, the narrowest of margins.

Successful challenges came from Bradford's Janine Belton swimming for Loughborough University in the first event of the meet, the 200m freestyle in which she lowered her own record from last year to 2min 3-55sec.

Overall top male swimmer of the meet, Mark Robinson from Plymouth took the record for the 200m backstroke in a time of 2-6.50, a record that had stood since 1983. Former Bradford swimmer Richard Shepherd, now studying at Portsmouth was in second place and Bradford's Steven Broadley in third place.

The last record swim went to Kirklees swimmer Jodie Edwards in the women's 100m backstroke with a time of 1-6.22.

Bradford swimmers took two gold, six silver, seven bronze and 26 finalist places at this fast meet. Golds went to 14-year-old Mark Gilhooly with a blistering last 25m in the 100m freestyle, to record a best time of 55-84 to score his first win over local rival Andrew Tracy from Kirklees.

Yorkshire medallist Katie Ford, 11, secured Bradford's second gold medal in ten or 11 years, with a 100m backstroke in a close race with Emily Ironside from Cockermouth in a time of 1-16.07.

Steven Broadley was City of Bradford's top male swimmer with one silver, four bronze and two other top six placings. Broadley won silver in the 100m backstroke, bronzes in the 200m freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, plus 100m freestyle all in best times.

His best swim was the 200m butterfly with only 0.5 of a second separating the top three swimmers. Steven rapidly closed down the race leaders Andi Manley and Mark Robinson in the last 25m to finish in a three second best time of 2min 10.82 sec.

City of Bradford's top female swimmer was Emma Collings with a silver in the women's 200m freestyle and four other top six finishes. Emma, a distance swimmer found sprint pace to record best times for the 50 and 100m freestyle plus 200 individual medley.

Silver medals went to home club swimmers Helen Stevens in the 12 years 100m breaststroke, Jamie Harrison (ten-11 year 200m individual medley) and, in the same age group, Marcus Sahebjam (100m freestyle) with 13-year-old Sarah George taking the 100m butterfly silver.

Coming out of retirement, sprinter Ben Pollard, now coaching swimmers in Bradford and doing a second degree in physiotherapy, showed them how it is done by winning bronze in the top 50m freestyle in a time of 24.83. Bradford's remaining medals went to Lana Schofield with bronze in the women's 100m backstroke and 12-year-old Michael Hebden in the 100m butterfly.

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