Swimming

On Wednesday 10th November, our sixth form swimmers competed in the Secondary Schools Relay Championships held at Millfield School. Competing for the girls team were Aimee Carter and Francyne Hardy (year 12) and Emma Beamish and Soukaina Grina (year 13), and for the boys Dan Broady, Liam Lodge, Ben Nunn and Tom Howells (year 12). The teams were entered into both a medley relay and a freestyle relay. The medley is viewed as the trickier of the two as it requires swimmers to take on all the four strokes. However, if you have swimmers with strengths in each stroke (most importantly, the breaststroke) you’ll blast it, and we were pretty sure we had this advantage. PE teacher Mrs Porter, who had arranged for our school to take part in the gala, took the teams down in a minibus and offered great support and encouragement throughout the day as we were surprised that the standard was set very high for this event.

As we entered the building, it became evident that many of the swimmers taking part belonged to clubs or schools which have their own pool and are often competing in national events. We had been comforting ourselves with the thought of schools not having many elite swimmers to enter the competition, as the likes of Sir Thomas Rich’s found themselves. The warm up commenced at 12.30pm in which swimmers were given 10 minutes swim time – a stressful 10 minutes which brought to the teams’ attention that these schools were not here to play - and 5 minutes diving time.

After the warm up the team got prepared, changing into their sharkskins, to undertake their first event - the medley relay. With a little while to wait until the girls’ race, up first in event 5, heat 2, we watched the younger age groups thrashing out faster times than we were expecting from our own category, and guessed it must be the private schools and most probably Millfield. Although a little nervous from the results previously seen, the girls headed down eagerly for their event and were determined to achieve great results. With the help of a few energy drinks, pep talks and stretches before hand, the girls achieved 2nd place in their heat, behind Millfield School B, and 7th place overall. Francyne started the race on the backstroke, followed by Aimee on breaststroke, Soukaina on butterfly and Emma on the anchor leg with front crawl achieving a time of 2.19.78.

Soon after it was time for the boys’ medley in event 6, heat 3 with a little more pressure as their heat included some of the top schools. With all the confidence you’d expect from a team of year 12 boys who are regularly training, they headed down for their race and glided into 4th place. With Ben first up on the backstroke, Dan taking over on breaststroke, followed by Tom on butterfly and finally Liam on front crawl, they achieved a time of 1.56.20.

There was another long wait before the next and final event so the teams took the time to reload and hydrate in preparation to give it everything in the freestyle. Event 11 finally approached for the girls competing in heat 3 which included local schools Sir Thomas Rich’s and Balcarras. The girls, feeling more at ease and confident for this event, prepared as before and once again achieved an easy 2nd place within the heat and 7th place overall with the time of 2.04.67.

The boys closely followed in event 12, heat 1 and with as much confidence as in their medley event and great determination, they took 1st place within their heat and 6th place overall. They achieved a time of 1.45.14, a great 9.11 seconds faster than the rest of their heat. With the competition as tight as it was, the teams achieved great results. Everyone was certainly ready for bed by the end of the day, but not before a good calorie loaded meal.
Emma Beamish (Year 13)