BBC TV presenter and ex-Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE hosted Canvey Island Swimming Club's annual presentation evening at The Paddocks.

Going up in the world - the Island club's national swimmers (left to right Kayleigh Muncey, Keeley Spooner, Chris Chenery and Adam Puddick with Sharron Davies)

Sharron enthralled the gathering with a rousing speech on her meteoric rise from learning to swim at the age of seven to Olympic stardom at the ripe old age of 13.

Included was a question and answer session where swimmers were able to ask their role model about such burning issues as what it felt like to win her Olympic silver at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

There was also plenty of opportunity to get those all-important photos and autographs and a chance for all to chat with one of England's most successful and charismatic sportswomen who still holds a national record for the 400m individual medley.

The main purpose of the evening was to celebrate the achievements of Canvey swimmers during the recent club championships.

Ironically, the competition now mirrors an Olympic programme with every event for every stroke included.

This year, however, chief coach Rob Park changed part of the format so that younger swimmers were also rewarded for swimming long distance events.

This compliments current competing conditions and enables those swimmers to achieve certain qualifying times.

In all there were in excess of 900 swims over the whole programme - a record for the club. With over 50 championship records broken, Sharron wasa certainly kept extremely busy handing out awards to swimmers whose ages ranged from six years to over 40!

Also presented were a select few who achieved national status, namely Phil Whitehead, Chris Chenery, Keeley Spooner, Chloe Williams and Kayleigh Muncey.

Published Tuesday January 13, 2004

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