Double gold at nationals schools swimming event
The elite swim squad at Eastbourne College is continuing its rise through the ranks with an extraordinary swimming display at the public schools national finals, known as the Bath Cup and John Nalson Medley Schools Swimming event. It was staged at the London Aquatics Centre last Friday with 79 boys teams and 63 girls teams competing.
The boys freestyle relay team, comprising Stanley Y (Year 9), Mathew C (Year 11), Nate C (Y11) and Charlie E-S (Year 12) qualified fastest in their heat to earn their top seeding in the final which they swam expertly with fast splits to secure the title by a full four seconds.
The boys medley relay team of Stanley Y (Year 9), Mathew C (Year 11), Josh Y (Year 12) and Jamie F (Year 12) secured their number one seeding by 0.4 secs in their heat and executed a superb swim in the final to seal their victory.
Our girls team also won through to the finals of their freestyle and individual medley events and were placed seventh in both, improving on their heats timings. Many congratulations to Isabelle G (Year 9), Hattie S (Year 9), Iso P-L (Year 9) and Amelie H (Year 11). They are a young team that is displaying dedication and great teamwork, so the future is looking very bright indeed.
Mike Harrison, Eastbourne College’s Director of Sport said, “The boys’ double gold achievement is hugely impressive and the finals placings for the girls is so well deserved after all the training that bookends each day in the early morning and evening. I am looking forward to seeing what they can achieve in the coming months and years.”
The College’s gold standard swimming programme is the vision of Jess Simmonds, Eastbourne College’s Head of Swimming, who has forged a strong partnership with Eastbourne Swimming Club. The collaboration has resulted in Dan Wright, Elite Coach at Eastbourne Swimming Club working with the College’s elite and aspirational swimmers who are training with the club and competing at galas throughout the year. Many of our swimmers are now at county and regional level and one at men’s national standard, so the alignment of training times alongside the coaching expertise and consistency has really shone through. Any aspirational swimmer can now think of Eastbourne as a top school destination, where they can compete at the very highest level in swimming.
Jess Simmonds said, “This is such an achievement for the team to gain this level of success in the biggest independent schools swimming event of the year and I feel enormously proud. The hard work in training at school but also at the Eastbourne Swimming Club has made a huge impact to the training programme that we offer. This is an experience that I know we will always remember, but we now have our sights fixed on the Individual National Schools competition in the summer.“
The Eastbourne College swim record is extremely strong. The College achieved back-to-back freestyle relay wins in the 2007 and 2008 competitions and wins in the Medley relay in 2009 and 2013. But it has been many years since a school has won both the medley and freestyle relays back-to-back, and that is most certainly something for this young team to focus on next year.
