SWIM star Laura Wood showed she is getting back to her best form when she successfully defended two of her Welsh national titles at the weekend.

The 18-year-old from Chineham was just outside her best short-course times in the two events she contested at Swansea.

Her winning 2min 35sec in her specialist event, the 200 metres breaststroke, was the third fastest of her career.

She also retained her 100m breaststroke crown in 1:13.12, which again was her third fastest time.

The Basingstoke swimming club member showed she is gradually recovering her best form after being sidelined by a knee ligament injury for three months at the start of the year.

The weekend before, Wood swam her fastest long-course 200m breaststroke time for two years, 2:38.5, when she finished sixth in the British grand prix at Bath.

She still has seconds to trim off her career-best to get under the Commonwealth Games qualifying time of 2:33.

Her competition programme is now selected by the Welsh national coaches and they have chosen for her Sheffield in January, Leeds in February and France in March before the national trials at Manchester in April.

The former Bishop Challoner schoolgirl is now a full-time member of the Welsh national training squad, based at Millfield School in Somerset, and will return there for a second block of 15 weeks in the new year.

Her countdown to the Commonwealth Games next summer will be aided by warm-weather training in Lanzarote in February.

Fellow Basingstoke swimming club member Toby Hanson has just been recognised by the Welsh national coaches.

The 16-year-old has just been nominated in the national talent identification squad for 2002 after successes this year in 200 and 400m freestyle, butterfly and 400 individual medley swims.