After a busy lead up to Christmas, swimmers from Severnside Tritons swimming club are ready to compete at the Gloucester County Championships.

The counties, often also referred to as ‘The Gloucester Blocks, started last Sunday at Hengrove Pool in Bristol, with a further three full weekends following on up until the end of February. These are all being held at GL1 leisure centre in Gloucester.

Training sessions are held at Stratford Park and Thornbury leisure centres, as well as Wycliffe, Archway and Tockington Manor schools.

In addition to these, the higher groups also regularly train at the Bath University and Cardiff International Pools – both of which are of 50 metre, Olympic size length.

Swimmers may also attend the annual warm weather training, which was held in Calella, Spain in October last year.

Leading up to the end of the year the club had two teams competing in the premier and second divisions (western) of the National Arena Swimming League, rounds of which were held at various pools between October and December.

In between these, individual events were swam at a number of local swimming galas at Hengrove, Weston, Gloucester and Newport with the intention of gaining qualification times for the county championships.

Severnside Tritons is a competitive swimming club based at Stratford Park leisure centre in Stroud, with a southern section based in Thornbury.

They provide a swimming programme that can take non-swimmers through to county, regional and, in some cases, national champions.

If you wish to request a trial for the swim development programme, which takes children aged 6-9, or, for more proficient swimmers to join the competition groups, then more information can be obtained at the website www.severnsidetritons.org.uk.