Bath Cup at the London Aquatics Centre

On Friday 13th March, six member of the St Edward’s Swimming Team competed in the prestigious Bath Cup and Otter Medley National Schools Relays for the second time in recent history. St Edward’s has competed in the past in the Bath Cup but it was so long ago that we have been unable to find the records!

It was a fantastic opportunity for the swimmers to compete in the 50 metre Queen Elizabeth Olympic Pool. In the morning session, the boys swam well achieving a school record in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay in a highly competitive field.

In the afternoon, the swimmers competed in the 4 x 50m Medley Relay. Matt Thornton, Vladimir Farenkov, Louis Wright and Michael Tsang set a phenomenal pace, coming 3rd in their heat, knocking just under 10 seconds off last year’s time, and improving our overall placing from 66th to 11th. It was a triumphant moment when St Edward’s were announced as 1st reserve in the final of the Dunelm Cup, narrowly missing out on swimming again.

The team of Michael Tsang, Vladimir Farenkov, Louis Wright, Frank Wates, Gleb Izmalov and Matt Thornton deserve real credit for their dedication in training for this event. Their team work and impressive swimming on the day resulted in two new school records being set — most impressive,. The Swimming Team are already looking forward to next year when we hope to enter a girls team again, as we did in 2014.

Rebecca Clark