BRAVE teenager Beth Morris is on top of the world after winning six gold medals at the World Transplant Games.

The young swimmer, who received a bone marrow transplant after suffering from leukaemia, has been competing against some of the world’s top athletes in Australia.

Beth came first in the 200m freestyle, 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 50m backstroke and 50m butterfly races for competitors aged 12 to 14.

She also picked up gold in the relay team freestyle, which was open to both adults and children.

Beth, of Hollow Meadows, Ringley, broke world records in five of the six events, narrowly missing out in the 50m butterfly.

She also took part in the relay team medley competition, finishing in fourth place.

Beth, aged 13, was selected to represent Great Britain after success in last year’s British Transplant Games.

She said: “It was great to compete in the games. It’s amazing and quite scary to think that I’m a world champion. It still hasn’t really hit me.

“My swimming clubs, my coach and all my family put in so much effort to support me and everyone has done a lot of fundraising. I’m pleased that I didn’t let down all those people who believed in me.”

Her dad, Jeremy, said: “Beth was fabulous and I am so proud of her. Everyone started calling her the ‘pocket rocket’ because she’s such a cracking little swimmer. All the team coaches were talking about her. She did really well, even better than we thought she was going to do.

“Beth had trained hard and it really paid off for her. She really deserved to win all her medals.”

Beth, a pupil at Bridgewater School in Worsley, returned home on Tuesday and has been busy showing off her medals to family and friends.

She is also training hard for the new swimming season, which starts this week.

Mr Morris said: “She will be knuckling down now and getting back to business as usual. She will soon be going up to the next age group and there is stiff competition there, so it’s important that she pushes hard to do well.”

Beth’s success comes after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was just 17 months old.

She was given chemotherapy treatment for two years, spending most of that time in hospital.

Although she seemed to be recovering, she had a relapse in 2001 and doctors told her parents she had a 30 per cent chance of surviving without a bone marrow transplant None of her relatives had matching blood types, but a charity eventually found a donor from Germany and Beth had her transplant in April, 2002, spending six weeks in almost total isolation afterwards.

Beth has been on the road to recovery ever since and continues to be in remission.

She now tries to live her life to the full and first took to the pool when she was seven years old in the hope of swimming with dolphins one day.

Her ambition was realised in Florida four years ago, but Beth has continued to train five times a week with the City of Salford and Worsley swimming clubs.

Beth said: “The biggest thank you goes to my bone marrow donor, because without him I wouldn’t be here today, never mind competing in the games and achieving so much. My donor really did give me the gift of life.”