Swimming
Silver lining for girls

SEVENTEEN of Bromsgrove Preparatory School’s leading swimmers took part in the IAPS National Finals.

The competition was tougher than any previous years, with Bromsgrove swimmers coming up against some strong opposition but they finished as the third strongest Prep school in the country.

Sam Osborne, Finley Evans, Tristan Bland, Sergey Marchenko and Euan Vaughan-Hawkins all achieved personal best times in their events for the boys team.

Osborne achieved third place overall in the 25m butterfly and Vaughan-Hawkins finishing third in the 25m backstroke.

Overall the boys finished joint 11th as a Prep School which was a brilliant achievement.

The under 10 girls’ team picked up silver medals in both the medley and freestyle relays, setting a new school record in the 4x25m medley.

The under 12 girls gained bronze medals both relays, while the under 13 girls achieved fourth place in their medley relay, narrowly missing the bronze medal by only 1/10th of a second.

In the girls’ individual races there were some extremely impressive results, including Katy Morrice finishing second in the under 10s 25m freestyle.

She was only 9/100ths of a second behind the winner but had the satisfaction of setting a new school record – a time that beat the current under 11 record for the event.

Niamh Donovan, Rachel Weller, Claire Humphries and Talia Mitchell clocked new personal best times in their events, with Mitchell and Humphries breaking the under 12 record for their respective events twice in the same afternoon and Weller also beat her own school record.

Both Claire Humphries and Abigail Saker also swam for the year above – an extremely impressive achievement in such strong competition.

Head of swimming Sean Camden said: “I couldn’t have asked for any more, the times achieved, including 15 personal best swims.

“The new records set are something we should all be proud of, especially the swimmers themselves.

“They are down to sheer hard work and commitment from both the swimmers and their parents.”

The under 10 and under 12 teams both finished joint runners-up on points, losing out to only Millfield Prep School.

The girls from Bromsgrove School finished third overall on points, losing out to Millfield and City of London Freemen’s School .

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