My day didn’t start very well. News that illness and injury seemed to have exclusively hit members of the swimming team greeted me, and I mentally prepared myself for a walk over by Exeter School.
We took 36 children from years 4 – 8 to complete against Exeter School in an A and B team gala. This is a highlight of the swimming calendar as it is an opportunity for us to take swimmers who may not get to swim for the school often. This year did not disappoint, as race after race saw close times and what turned out to be a very evenly matched competition.
There was a number of standout swims: the three Year 7 girls who gallantly swam extra events, weather they were their favourite events or not, without complaining demonstrated an excellent team spirit. Charlie B who had spent the 45mins leading up to the first race telling me that I had got it wrong and selected the wrong person gave a fabulous performance in the 50m Butterfly. Georgina E convincingly winning her 50m Backstroke race was another noteworthy performance. But the man of the match was undoubtedly Oscar G. At the turn of his 50m Freestyle he was 5 or 6 meters behind the race leader, but an almighty second length saw him draw the race. What makes this performance so exceptional was that Oscar did it again… and again in both the medley relay and the freestyle relay. Swimming the last leg of each, he took over several metres behind but powered his way down the pool to first place. Amazing!
We can walk away from this gala with a real sense of the depth of swimming that we have across the school our A and B teams were pretty even in ability and we had plenty of reserves ready and able to come and swim for us. The Exeter staff also commented on how well our children had behaved, they were attentive and quick to line up. A very pleasing reputation to have.
It has been a busy few weeks for swimming at ECS and with three galas over three weeks completed I must thank the army of parents who have devotedly followed us around the various pools. They have endured sauna like temperatures, extreme noise and a fair amount of tension and despite this have kept smiling and cheering us on. It makes a huge difference to the team and we are very grateful to the hours that you have devoted to the school. Thank you.
Rachel Noble
Swimming Coach
