Fabian Whitbread, Lizzie Oliver and Emily Nisbet led the way as City of Oxford SC began their defence of their crown in style.

City won three of the four long-distance championship titles on offer at Bletchley.

Whitbread kicked off the campaign with victory in the men’s open 1500m freestyle, touching home in a time of 16mins 6secs.

Then Oliver, 17, led from the start to win the women’s open 800m freestyle in 9.6.

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And 15-year-old Nisbet captured the girls’ junior 800m freestyle title in a time of 9.14, which also remarkably bagged her second place in the open event.

There was also a gold medal for City’s boys’ age 13-14 4x50m freestyle relay team, consisting of Daniel Jenkins, Jack Bradley, Theo Cooke and Henry Barlow.

Jenkins, Bradley and Cooke were then joined by Max Underwood to take silver in the boys’ age 13-14 4x50m medley relay.

In a demonstration of how City of Oxford have grown under head coach Amanda Booth’s leadership, theirnumber of individual qualifiers for the championships has increased to 80 – nearly twice as many individual races as any other club in the county.

Bicester Blue Fins’ Kieran Bird was crowned the 1,500m junior freestyle champion.

The 15-year-old Bird swam a tactically brilliant race to become champion of all ages, 16 and under, in 16.15.10secs, to finish second overall.

Teammate Tom Thornley, also 15, finished fourth overall and third in the junior competition.

Ellie Falkner, 15, claimed a bronze medal in the 800m freestyle.

She touched home in 9.23.55 to finish runner-up in the junior competition.

Oliver Inness, William Whitley, Freddie Ashley-Sparks and Ben Inness struck gold for Bicester in the 13 to14-year-old 4x50m medley race by from a strong City of Oxford team, and also won silver in the freestyle relay.

The results put Blue Fins second place behind in the competition.

“This was a great start to our county championships campaign,” said Bicester’s head coach Struan McNeil.

“It’s a sign of how much the club is moving forward that we’ve had a 15 per cent increase in the number of accepted entries into this year’s events."

To end the first weekend lying in second place in the points overall is very positive.

The championships resume tthis weekend at Aylesbury’s Aqua Vale pool with the middle distance individual events and girls relays.

Meanwhile, City of Oxford's Fabian Whitbread, Lizzie Oliver and Lucy Smith have been selected to represent the South East at the Catalonian Open Senior Championships in Barcelona.

The trio join the 20-strong squad after exceptional performances at the South East ASA Winter Regional Championships last month.

City head coach Amanda Booth has been selected as one of two coaches for the team.

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