PERSHORE 15-year-old Tazmin Pugh has just returned from Samoa having been competing for England in the fifth Commonwealth Youth Games in which she collected six medals from her eight events.

Swimmer Pugh is now on a scholarship at Ellesmere College after being a pupil at Bowbrook House School, Abbey Park Middle and Pershore High.

Following a week-long training camp at Rotorura in New Zealand, Pugh was in action on the first day, just missing out on a podium place. She had to double up in the finals session almost immediately by competing in the 200m fly and fought back strongly in the last 50 metres to gain a bronze medal.

Australian Gemma Cooney took gold and 17-year-old Meg Finnon of Scotland the silver.

On the second day Pugh swam to her second hard-fought bronze in the the 400m individual medley and was in action again soon after in the 4x200 freestyle team relay. The England girls battled hard to clinch a silver medal.

The third day found Pugh appearing a little jaded in the individual 100m fly (seventh in the final) but pulled it altogether by taking yet another team relay medal in the 4x100m freestyle winning bronze.

On the final day, the Worcestershire teenager thought there was little chance of a podium place in the 200m individual medley as she had not even entered the event at the British National Championships in August. But in making the finals, it was just the boost she needed to swim to her life-time best and take her third individual bronze medal of the games.

Pugh followed this in the final 4x100 medley relay where she swam the butterfly leg with Brittany Horton (City of Birmingham) starting off in the backstroke, Layla Black (following her two golds and a bronze) in the breaststroke leg and Georgina Boyle (Chelsea and Westminster) bringing them home in the freestyle leg. England eventually took silver after some great swimming by the quartet.

This helped England take second place overall with 25 medals (six gold; nine silver and 10 bronze) behind a dominant Australian team.

But the England camp were happy to see every one of their 12 swimmers win at least one medal, three taking five and Pugh with six.

Head coach Alan Bircher said: “Taz has done a fantastic job this season. We set goals and markers all through the season and she’s raised the bar for herself.”