Two youngsters swam their way to a golden hoard in Holland.

Colchester Phoenix ASC's Natalie Jones, 15, and Robert Pulford, 14, returned home in triumph from an international swimming event held in Deventer, Holland.

They brought back a haul of nine golds, Natalie, of Shrub End, Colchester, picking up five and Robert four.

Robert, a pupil at Philip Morant School in Colchester, also knocked a minute off his best time for the 100metres and is now looking forward to taking part in the national junior swimming championships.

He will be part of the BT Swimming Disability Sport England as a member of the Eastern Regional junior swimming team.

The Deventer event, which was open to both non-disabled and disabled swimmers, attracted entries from all over the world.

It is a unique event within the international swimming calendar in that it brings together swimmers of various abilities to compete alongside each other.

This year 300 swimmers took part from Holland, England, Germany, Denmark, Croatia, Belgium, Australia and the Faroe Islands

The ten-strong Phoenix squad - which included world class performance swimmer Natalie, Robert, and Paralympic hopeful Helen Smith who is a quadruple amputee - gained a total of 16 gold, eight silver and two bronze medals.

Craig Taylor, Mark Holmes and Kate Love all achieved personal best times in their events.

Medal winners

Gold:

Jessica Cook (3), Barry Noakes (2), Natalie Jones (5), Robert Pulford (4).

Silver:

Jessica Cook, Katherine Taylor(3), Helen Smith (3).

Bronze:

Barry Noakes, Helen Smith, Darren Swash.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.