Gold Medal for Totton College Student

Seventeen year old Alex Hamilton, who is studying for her BTEC National in Applied Science (Sport) at Totton College, won a gold medal in the 50m Front Crawl Under 18 event in the Scottish Open Long Course Swimming Championships in Glasgow last weekend. With a personal best time of 27.86 seconds, she beat some of the top swimmers in the UK.

She also won a bronze medal in the 4 x 2 Freestyle relay with fellow swimmers from the Carnegie Club. Alex is a member of Southampton Swimming Club but, as her parents are Scottish, she swims for Carnegie as well. In the open event she came 14th overall against very strong competition from swimmers of all ages. The winner in that race was Alison Shepherd, Olympic finalist. Totton College student Alex is now the number three swimmer in Scotland and has her eyes set firmly on the Commonwealth Games next year.

Alex started swimming at club level when she was nine and now does four hours of weights and a minimum of ten to twelve hours of pool work per week. When she has finished her course at Totton College she is planning to go to Coventry University where there is a specialist course for swimmers.

"It's all starting to come together now", says Alex. "I've just got to carry on with the training and keep working hard. I couldn't have achieved this success without my coach Alan Ayles, of Southampton Swimming Club."