Romford Town swimmers are back with a splash to celebrate their 120th anniversary with Covid-compliant competition, virtually racing other swimmers from all over London.

The majority of seven to 18-year-olds completed a full race card for all distances and strokes up to and including 400m freestyle and 400 individual medley over three nights at their local training pool at Everyone Active Abbs Cross.

Swimmers were carefully led from their waiting area in the large school gym to poolside by a volunteer and officially timed by more Swim England qualified officials from the club, largely parents who also volunteered their services.

Many of these received Unsung Hero Awards from Swim England this month and all the swimmers came out of the pool with huge smiles on their faces and enjoyed the challenge after training so hard through lockdown with dry land sessions and since returning in March to the pool with regular training sessions.

The hard work paid off, as the majority were close to their best ever times and indeed many set new ones, with head coach Gary Rogers saying: "It's great to be back and competing. There were some good performances despite the swimmers not having access to the pool for most of the last year.”

Top swimmers from the virtual leaderboards will compete further at the London Aquatic Centre in July for National recognition and many, despite their dedication to their sport, have been denied competition since March 2020.

Those aged over 18 have been prevented from training with their squad altogether, so returning to the pool has been an immense relief to them all.

Romford Town Otters is now also up and running, enabling those who need to learn to swim and supporting all levels and abilities who have missed out over the last 15 months.