Junior swimmers from Camden Swiss Cottage made a splash on Sunday by finishing runners-up in the M11 division of this year’s National Junior Swimming League, agonisingly close to the top spot.

After the last of the three rounds, held at Enfield’s Southbury Road pool, Camden’s youngsters finished with the same points total as Barnet Copthall – but Barnet took the prize due to their higher number of first-place finishes during the competition.

Despite that, Camden are celebrating their best performance for a number of years.

Team manager Michelle McCarthy said: “I was really pleased with the overall result and impressed with the team’s dedication, especially those swimmers who participated in all three rounds.

“We actually achieved a greater number of ‘gala’ points than Barnet and were only runners up based on ‘league’ points, which was a fantastic achievement.”

The star of the series for Camden was nine-year-old Gabriele Giovannoni, who won the 25m freestyle and touched a close second in the 25m backstroke while teaming up with Leo He, Theo Pliner and Keith Mara to complete two impressive relay victories.

Abel Sinko-Uribe also continued his strong form with a powerful victory in the 50m freestyle and a second place in the 50m breaststroke. He then joined Mika Fitzpatrick-Suen, Alex Borisov and Pavle Stamenkovic for victories in the 12-and-under freestyle and medley relays.

Camden’s other individual winner was Nora Rotman, who powered to an impressive sprint double in the 10-and-under 50m freestyle and 50m backstroke.

Valuable individual second-place finishes came from nine-year-old Keith Mara and Daniel Markov, 10, and touching third were Ella McEver, nine, Allie Gruber, 10, Markov, 10, and Celine Markantonis, 12.

The boys’ 10-and-under freestyle relay team of Giovannoni, Ben Quellman, Charlie Pliner and Markov came second – as did the girls’ 11 years medley team of Clementine Butler Brown, Chloe Berko-Boateng, Amelia Sargent and Rotman.

The mixed freestyle relay side of McEver, Giovannoni, Rotman, Markov, Butler Brown, Mikhail Krasnoshchekiy, Drew Dill and Sinko-Uribe also achieved that feat as the runners-up in their race.

In the final round, Barnet Copthall banked 273 points, while Camden Swiss Cottage collected 243 and Kingston Royals picked up 225.