A COUNTY youth sports team has struck gold at a national competition.

The Denbighshire Development Team (DDT), a 45-strong squad of some of the county’s best young swimmers, topped the leaderboard at the Robin Hood Open Meet, UK swim competition held in Sheffield on September 15-16.

The Denbighshire youngsters, aged nine to 19, competed against more than 20 other teams from Wales, England and Scotland across 291 events to achieve 22 gold, 27 silver and 21 bronze medals, putting them in first place at the end of the two-day competition.

The team was comprised of the leading swimmers from Denbigh, Ruthin, Corwen and Rhyl swimming clubs, who were selected by the clubs’ respective coaching staff, who also joined forces over the weekend to manage the swimmers.

Justin Jones, head coach at Denbigh Dragons and DDT, said: “This is the development team’s first major success since it was established 10 years ago.

“There were many outstanding performances.”

“We were ahead after the first day but we didn’t inform the swimmers because we didn’t want to put pressure on them. We wanted them to continue swimming as well as they had been.”

The competitions ranged from 50 metre butterfly to 200m back stroke and 400m front crawl.

Mr Jones continued: “The team really integrated well. We train four times a year and took part in team building exercises.

"The coaches from Rhyl, Ruthin and Corwen put a lot of work in and there was great support from parents.”

Denbigh, Ruthin, Corwen and Rhyl swim clubs welcome new members. For more information contact the towns’ respective leisure centres.