Cirencester Swimming Club is celebrating success in Swim England's inaugural Level X Racing series, achieving a number of top 10 finishes.

The coaches at Cirencester Swimming Club have been passionate about keeping their swimmers engaged for their physical and mental wellbeing during lockdown; from zoom socials, to online CrossFit training sessions.

So, the team jumped at the chance to take part in “Level X”; organised by Swim England in October 2020, which allowed swim clubs to compete against other clubs nationally, without anyone needing to leave their home pool.

“Level X” Racing gave club swimmers the opportunity to enter a series of time-trials - using all strokes at varying distances and then submit them to Swim England rankings.

The competition was open to all swimming clubs in England and 430 clubs took part: a total of 16,200 swimmers across the UK.

The races were held as part of normal club training sessions and were open to all swimmers aged 9 & over.

The top 10 swimmers in the UK competition for this first “Level X” series were recently published, and Cirencester Swimming Club landed three of their swimmers in the UK top 10: achieving 10 different top 10 race results between them.

Kirsten Powell, 15, achieved top 10 Level X places in 6 out of her 7 events including 3rd in 50m Breaststroke, 4th in 50m Backstroke and 4th in 100m Individual Medley.

Alex Cohoon, 18, achieved 7th in the 50m Freestyle while Olivia Kerr Muir, 14, reached 5th in 50m Freestyle, 9th in 100m Freestyle and 10th in 50m Backstroke.

Chair of Cirencester Swimming Club Ali Norrish said: “We are extremely proud of all of our swimmers for their tenacity through this challenging period.

"Their hard work really shows with these impressive Level X results.

"We hope to resume normal swim training as soon as guidance allows and enable our swimmers to continue their success with Level X series 2”.