SWIMMING startlet Ambah Simpson has another gold medal to her name following a gritty performance at the recent English Schools National Swimming Championships in Manchester.

Ambah, age 12, was selected for the Division 7 (Staffordshire and Greater Manchester) squad and it was her powerful first leg that set up a victory in the Junior Girls Medley Relay.

She also finished fourth in the individual 100 metres backstroke final, despite many other competitors being a year older, and had the consolation of her squad being named the top Junior Girls Team in the UK.

It has been another successful year for Ambah, who harbours ambitions to represent her country at the 2012 Olympics.

In July, she qualified for a staggering eight events (Under 12’s) at the National Age Group Championships in Sheffield. Having elected to swim in six due to the gruelling four day schedule of heats and finals, Ambah’s best performances came in the backstroke events over 200m (5^th) and 100m (4^th). The latter saw an extremely close finish with less than a second separating the top four, and Ambah missing out on a medal by just six hundreths of a second.

Ambah, a member of the Stockport Metro Swimming Club, remains confident that she can improve her times in the months ahead. Given many of her peers have now moved up an age category, it seems likely that more success is around the corner.

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