James Baxter stood proudly atop of the podium at the London Aquatics Centre after swimming his way to a gold medal at the Southern Zonal Championships.

The Wycombe District Swimming Club member triumphed in the boys under-16 100m fly final at the venue, which played host to the world’s finest swimmers at the London 2012 Olympic games, on February 1.

A time of 58.2 seconds was enough to see Baxter to victory and was just 0.1 off his personal best over the distance.

Other members of the swimming club who competed in Stratford included Millie Sansome, who reached the finals of both the 100m and 200m backstroke in the under-14 girls section.

In both events Sansome achieved the qualifying times for April’s British Championships, becoming just the fourth Wycombe swimmer to do so in the process.

Elsewhere James Eddy, Rachel Cox and Sophie Millen all reached their respective finals in their events, with Eddy missing out on the British Championship qualifying time by just one second.

Ben Goldfinch, Kate Lee, Emily Bench and Natasha Moss also tested themselves at the competition which attracted the best swimmers from across the south east and London.

Coach Kevin Brooks said: “I’m really happy with our swims at this meet. With it being mid-cycle we had a combination of differing performances as expected.

“But it was great to see WDSC up on the Podium, gaining British Championships Qualifying times and setting personal and seasonal bests.”