A FALMOUTH schoolgirl dominated the Cornwall County Swimming Championships held recently.

Josie Williams, aged 14, won both junior and senior level in the freestyle.

At Penzance, and seeded as the fastest in the County for 200m freestyle, Josie led from the front to smash by over four seconds the 22- year-old record county record in 2:07.43.

The time which qualified her for the National Swimming Championships in Sheffield, left the runner-up almost 15 metres behind at the touch.

The next day she travelled to Bodmin, where she completed the double by winning at junior and senior level blue ribbon event, the Women’s 100 metres Freestyle. Noted as the race of the weekend for its excitement and drama, Josie qualified as the fastest for the final swimming the 100 metres in less than 60 seconds, 59:71. Lining up in the final was 20-year-old former Commonwealth games trialist Laura Dearing from Bodmin, who was Josie idol at age 9 and 10.

However, all did not go quite to plan in the final, where getting off to a great start Josie led on the first length until a bad turn saw her placed third, digging deep she slowly over the course of the next two lengths reeled the leaders back. Finally a great last turn saw Laura and Josie going head-to-head down the final length with large crowd screaming and shouting Josie stretched away in the last five metres to win by 0.63 of a second. The gutsy swim had required Josie to swim negative time splits to be crowned champion.

Josie who swims for the premier Cornish swimming club Truro City also had three other second placed finishes in the 200-metre individual medley, 100-metre backstroke and 50 metre butterfly just getting touched out 0.01 of a second.