Spectacular Summer Success for King’s Swimmers

Seven Senior School swimmers were celebrating this summer after securing places in the Finals of the Under 16 British Summer Championships and the English and Welsh National Summer Meets.  

 The British Championships and the National Summer Meets are some of the biggest domestic swimming events of the year organised by Swim England and are held at the impressive Olympic-sized Swimming Pool at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield. 

 The British Summer Championships bring a competitive end to the two-month swimming qualification season, which runs from mid-March to mid-May; swimmers take part in multiple competitions, culminating in the final championships at the end of July. The 24 swimmers ranked top from the qualifying events are invited to this event. To be invited to these championships is an exceptional achievement for the King’s Worcester swimmers and we offer them all our heartiest congratulations.  

 Harry C, who swims in the 15 years of age group, qualified for six individual events: the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m Freestyle, 100m and 200m Butterfly, as well as the 4 x 100m Medley Relay and 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay with teammates from the Royal Wolverhampton School Swimming Club. In the 16 years of age group Ben G qualified for two individual events, the 50m and 100m Freestyle, and the 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay with Worcester Swimming Club. Grace E, who joined King’s Sixth Form this September, qualified for three events in the 16 years of age group: the 50m, 100m and 200m Breaststroke. 

 In the competition, the top 10 swimmers from the heats go through to finals. While Harry came 13th in the 50 Freestyle, 13th in the 200m Butterfly and 18th in the 200m Freestyle heats, he was 10th in the finals of the 400m Freestyle, 8th in finals of the 100m Freestyle, and won Bronze in the 100m Butterfly, which is a remarkable achievement. Ben was 12th in the 50m Freestyle and 16th in the 100m Freestyle heats and Grace was 15th in the 200m Breaststroke and 16th in the 50m Breaststroke heats but came a fantastic fifth in finals of the 100m Breaststroke, with only 0.37s separating second to fifth places.  

 In the English National Summer Meet at the same venue, the next top 22 ranked swimmers in each age group are invited by each Home Nation to take part; while he just missed out on qualification for the British Championships in some of his events, Ben was invited to the English National Summer Meet, along with four other ambitious King’s swimmers, Aled L, Dylan L, Frankie B and Grace R, after they qualified in their respective strokes earlier this year. Aled, who swims in the 15 years of age group, qualified for three events: the 50m, 100m, and 200m Breaststroke.

Ben qualified for two events in the 16 years of age group: the 50m and 100m Butterfly and in the 13/14 years of age group, Dylan qualified for four events: the 50m Freestyle, and 50m, 100m, and 200m Backstroke.

Frankie qualified for one event in the 15 years of age group, the 50m Freestyle, and Grace qualified for one event in the 15 years of age group, the 200m Breaststroke. 

Once again, the top ten swimmers in heats go through to finals. Aled came 21st in the 200m Breaststroke heats and was 10th in finals of the 50m and 100m Breaststroke. Dylan was 18th in the 50m Freestyle and 13th in the 100m and 200m Backstroke heats and 6th in the finals of the 50m Backstroke. Frankie was 9th in the finals of the 50m Freestyle and Grace was 7th in the finals of the 200m Breaststroke. Ben achieved great success in the English Nationals, with Silver in the 100m Butterfly and Gold in the 50m Butterfly, thereby becoming English National Champion. Not to be outdone, in the Welsh National Summer Meet, which includes open entry swimmers, Aled secured 200m Individual Medley Gold, another superb achievement. 

 Head of Swimming Competitions in the Senior School, Lizzie Monkhouse, added, “I am delighted that we had so many talented swimmers make the National Championships this year. The swimmers work incredibly hard and need to juggle their school commitments with their rigorous training schedule right up to the event, which is no mean feat. It is therefore lovely to see the swimmers achieve so well and for all that hard work to pay off. We have just heard that Harry C has been selected for the National Youth Development Programme by British Talent, on which we congratulate him.” 

Swimming from King’s really is going from strength to strength!