WORCESTER club captain Aaron Cook won gold at the English Home Nations Championships in Sheffield.

Natasha Dobson secured a silver medal in the Welsh equivalent.

The summer meets allow swimmers outside of the Great Britain top 24 to compete at a national event and competition remains fierce.

Will Gearey, Louis Doyle and Becky Redfern, with the visually-impaired swimmer at her first national event as an able-bodied athlete, followed up their British appearances.

All did well but narrowly missed out on finals.

Redfern was 11th in the 100-metre breaststroke, Gearey 11th in the 100m freestyle and Doyle 14th in the 100m backstroke.

Worcester success soon arrived though with Lauren Annis and Cook starring on days three and four.

Annis produced a personal best of 31.48 seconds to progress through in fifth to the girls’ 15 year 50m backstroke final.  She was 0.15 seconds slower in the final, just missing out on a medal in a tight race.

Cook was ranked 19th in the 200m butterfly with a lifetime best from this season of two minutes 16.34 seconds.

But he stormed through his heats by clocking 2.09.94 to reach the final ranked number one.

An absorbing final saw Cook turn last at both 50m and 100m but a strong third length moved him into contention.

A blistering 32.49 on the last-length finish saw him snatch gold in another PB of 2.09.02, 0.04 seconds in front of a Plymouth swimmer in second.

Worcester was well represented in Swansea too at the Welsh Home Nations Championships.

Natasha Dobson, Jessica Dobson and Henry Halford secured invitations with Cameron Leach and Grace Earp achieving the non-Welsh qualifying times for the meet.

All produced year best performances but pride of place went to Natasha Dobson. She produced a two-second PB in the girls’ 16 year 200m backstroke final to win silver for her first national medal.

Worcester competitors set new county relay records at the prestigious British Summer Championships in Glasgow.

Doyle, Gearey and 2016 Paralympic silver medallist Redfern qualified individually along with three teams.

Only the top 24 in each age group and the best 30 relay groups were invited.

Worcester sprinters Doyle and Gearey led the way, competing in the boys’ 16 year 50-metre backstroke and 50m freestyle respectively.

Despite preparations being slightly hampered by GCSE exams and injury, both were only just outside their qualification times.

They narrowly missed out on places in the finals with Doyle 14th and Gearey 11th.

Redfern, in heavy training ahead of next month’s World Para Championships in London, was some way off her personal best in the 100m breaststroke.

She finished fifth in the multi-classification contest.

But a two-second PB in the 200m individual medley augurs well for London.

And Redfern did 29.65 seconds in the 50m freestyle for fifth in that event too.

Competition was hot for the three 17 and over relay teams with all the top groups in the country involved.

But the eight Worcester girls stepped up to the mark in the competition.

The 4x200m freestyle team of Olivia Fletcher, Madeleine Hoare, Josie Armstrong and Heather Castle delivered a 16-second improvement on their qualification time.

They smashed their own county record and finished 12th. The 4x100m freestyle group of Jenny Gearey, Charlotte Hall, Fletcher and Hoare also stormed to a county record by two seconds, securing 13th place.

The 4x100 medley team of Fletcher, Redfern, Tabitha Monkhouse and Charlotte Hall could not quite match their county best, finishing just 0.26 seconds outside it in 18th place.