ELLIE Wallace of Backwell Swimming Club powered her way to a gold medal and two speeding tickets at last weekend's Gloucester Open Meet.

Backwell's 10-year-old butterfly swimmer has been improving recently as she looks to achieve a Western Counties qualifying time.

The weekend started well in the 50m butterfly. While she was disappointed not to get yet another personal best, Wallace did win a gold medal for her efforts.

Sunday saw her swim in both the 100m individual medley and the 200m butterfly.

The Gloucester Open Meet was an event which had upper time limits, which meant swimmers could not enter if they were too fast for the event.

Wallace had entered her personal best times in both races, but due to the extra work and training she had been putting in with the head coach and senior squad, she smashed her 100m IM personal best by eight seconds.

This meant that she was now quicker than the upper time limit and therefore could not qualify for a medal and instead picked up a speeding ticket.

In the 200m butterfly, Wallace proved she had good endurance and paced the race just right to finish first and wipe 27 seconds off her previous personal best and qualifying time, meaning that she received another speeding ticket instead of a medal.

Junior coach Lindsey Aldington said: "Medals are great, but speeding tickets are even better!.

"I'm so proud of her achievements and her commitment to training.

"This performance and her efforts in training show why she is a worthy winner of junior squad swimmer of the month for June."