Bury Church of England High School student Matthew George recently swam in the North West Regional Championships held at the Manchester Aquatics Centre.

Swimmers from across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria, Merseyside, Cheshire and the Isle of Man took part in the prestigious event, which was staged over two weekends.

The Age Group Championship is based around heats and finals in all disciplines and swimmers competed in the 12, 13, and 14-year-old boys and girls events.

Matthew proved to be the outstanding boy performer of the championships with nine gold medals and championship titles in the 100m, 200m 400m freestyle events. He also won the 100m and 200m butterfly, 100m and 200m backstroke and 200m and 400m IM events.

The 13-year-old also collected two All Time Age Group regional championship records in the 100m freestyle with 55.87secs and the 400IM with 4mins 50secs.

He was pushed all the way in every event against a quality field but saved his best swim until last by improving his personal best time in the 100m butterfly final by two seconds to win gold.

Matthew, who lives in Rochdale, has now qualified to swim in nine events at the British Gas Age Group National Championships, which will be held in Sheffield next month.

The Aquabears swimmer has been selected to represent Bury Church High School in North West Inter Regional Schools Team to compete in Bristol at the end of this month.

He was part of the successful Lancashire squad that won the National County Championship team earlier in the year and is part of the England Talent programme.