Harare — SAMANTHA Welch, the blonde 11-year-old wiz kid from Chisipite School, stole the limelight at the weekend's Mashonaland Junior Swimming Championships at Harare's Les Brown Pool by winning five Gold medals.

She was the only swimmer to clinch the maximum 50 individual points by winning all five of her races.

But even Super Sam, from Spartans Club, could not crack a Zimbabwe record -- a daunting task when three of them are still held by Kirsty Coventry.

She completely dominated four of her races and won the 132-yard individual medley by almost seven seconds from Megan Carey Smith of Highlands Club.

Carey Smith, who was second in four of the races, showed her mettle by hanging on to Welch in the 66-yard backstroke and touching just over a second behind. In the individual medley Sam won in 1min 40.89sec, still more than six seconds off Nicola Bradshaw's national record set in 1998.

In the 66 yard (2 lengths) breaststroke Sam won in the superb time of 50.42sec, less than two seconds off Coventry's 1994 mark. Another 11-year-old, Dylan Rosser of Otters, came close to emulating Sam's pure gold feat.

The lanky Hellenic schoolboy won four of his five races and was only beaten into second place by Nardus Brits of Dorados Swim Club in the 66-yard breaststroke, who won in 51.89sec against 52.70sec. Two other swimmers excelled by each notching up more than 40 points.

Federico "Chicco" Bescotti of Pirates and Sharon School continued to dominate the Boys 9-year-olds group by winning three golds and then being pipped by a fingernail by Eddie Byrom in the 33 yards one length butterfly.

It was an exciting duel where their top two times were 22.54sec and 22.61sec, about 1.5sec off the Zimbabwe record.

Kaleigh Graham (Spartans) (2 Gold, 2 Silver) and Kendell Lindsay-White (Highlands) (3 Gold, 1 Silver) fought a close tussle in the 10-year-old girls group, Kaleigh winning the aggregate trophy with 41 points to Kendell's 38 points.

Another highlight of the weekend's gala was the sudden emergence of the ever-smiling Nicole Wallace, of Spartans, as the leader of the pack in the 9-year-old group.

She won the aggregate trophy with 39 points from Jessica Wright (34) and Bree Caterall (29) and is reaping the reward of hard and dedicated training.

Nicole's points came via two Gold Medals in the 66 yards freestyle (49.36sec) and the 132 yard individual medley (2min 06.45sec) and two second places. In the youngest age group of 8 and under, pony-tailed Robyn Lee of Pirates and Sydne Cockcroft of Spartans shared the aggregate trophy with 29 points each. They are both shaping up as fine prospects for the future as is Niamh van der Nest as a breaststroke specialist and the new Mashonaland champion in 30.22sec

Muscular little Nic Welch again dominated the 8 and under boys and took the aggregate trophy with 38 points via four Gold Medals and a Silver. This gave the Welch family a haul of nine golds and one silver for the weekend through Sam and Nic. Spartans Club was dominant and made a clean sweep of the team trophies, winning the boys, girls and combined scores.