ESSA Primary Relays National Finals, Ponds Forge (Y5/6)
U11 Boys - Joshua F (Captain), Henry E (Vice-Captain), Edward J, George C
It has been a busy time for these swimmers who competed last weekend in London at the IAPS National Finals and this weekend in Sheffield at the ESSA National Finals. The ESSA National Finals sees the top 24 schools in each category competing in the 4x25m Freestyle and 4x25m Medley Relays. Once again, this team had to qualify for this event at a regional level which saw them finish 2nd and 3rd place in their respective events at Repton. Unlike IAPS, which is restricted to independent prep schools, the ESSA event sees teams from any school across the UK competing. As you can imagine this is quite a field! Ponds Forge is another prestigious venue, which hosted the 2022 British Swimming Championships. Our team was made up three Y6 boys (Josh, Henry and Edward) and Year 5, George C, who was swimming a year young.
As expected, competition was extremely tough but the team swam well and on reflection did everything they could have done. We recorded the performance from the heats and analysed this with each swimmer. We missed out on the finals for the 4x25m freestyle as the reserve team but were delighted to scrape through for the 4x25m Medley. The boys put up a great fight and learned a lot from this experience. Well done and thank you to our loyal supporters for travelling up and down the country!