Adam Plavsic continued to excel for Acton Swimming Club in the final two weekends of the Middlesex County Championships.

Having already won gold in the 50m breaststroke, he defied the seedings again to win both the 100m and the 200m events.

In the process he knocked four and eight seconds off the personal best times he obtained in January at the Windsor Open.

In the 100m, 0.7 of a second stands tantalisingly in the way of the youngster's ambition to compete in the national championships in Sheffield in July.

National breaststroke times are notoriously tough and so far only one boy has the qualifying time.

Plavsic, who is now ranked number three in the country, has a good chance of joining him. He is also within three seconds of national times in the 200m breaststroke and 100m freestyle.

A string of personal bests also brought Plavsic success in other strokes, with bronze medals in the 100m medley and 100m freestyle and topeight places in the 100m backstroke, 200m medley and 200m freestyle.

Ryan Beresford also continued his success story in the breaststroke, coming fifth in the 100m final, while Takuro Matsui was eighth in the 200m medley.

Acton's nine-year-olds made a striking debut in the cham-pionships. Isabel Barnes won her first medal - a bronze in the 200m medley. She was unlucky to miss a medal in the 200m breaststroke, finishing fourth, and was seventh in the 200m backstroke and 200m freestyle.

Maggie Innes was fifth in the 200m freestyle and seventh in the 200m medley and Matthew Plavsic was eighth in the 200m breaststroke and backstroke.

Nine-year-olds are not eligible to enter the 100m events apart from the 100m medley and here the rising stars enjoyed reaching their first county finals with Innes coming seventh and Barnes and Matthew Plavsic in eighth places.

The overall positions in each age group will not be known for a week or two, but it looks promising for the Acton swimmers.

At the start of the final afternoon, Isabel Barnes was sixth and Maggie Innes 10th in the nine-years age group and Adam Plavsic was the third 12-year-old boy in the county.

There were also good performances from other Acton qualifiers: Hannah Compton, Anna Szyszko, Louise Innes, Maisie Preston, Sioned Bryant, Alexandra Vangelatos, Kanro Matsui, Josh Wood and Max Honigsbaum.

The results for the 2008 British Swimming Masters decathlon teams have just been published - with the Acton men's team 66th out of 455 clubs and the women's team 84th out of 399 clubs. Both teams aim to get a top-50 place in 2009.

More good news is the publication of the FINA World Rankings for 2008, which confirms that Malcolm Munro, 62, is ranked third in the world in his age group in the 200m backstroke.