Never has the nationally renowned Plymouth College and Plymouth Leander swimming partnership been more clearly celebrated than at the English Schools Swimming Association National Finals. The 58th Inter Divisional Finals at the long course (50m pool) Manchester Aquatics Centre not only saw the South West (Division 5) team dominate the proceedings by a record winning margin, but 15 of the team and three of their five staff were taken from the Plymouth programme.
New English Schools records from Backstroke sensations Adam John and Zoe Hester were the highlights of the local success, with John notching up 59.36 to win the Intermediate 100m Backstroke in some style. The former record was that of Marco Loughran (1:00.13) set in 2004. Zoe Hester was also to ensure an English Schools title as she destroyed the opposition in the Intermediate 100m Backstroke, her time of 1:04.43 nearly a full second inside the former record set by Lauren Collins in 2005.
Callum Murphy was to make it three individual wins for Plymouth athletes as he set about the Junior 100m Freestyle, impressing tremendously with 56.34 to miss the English Schools record by only 0.11. All three Plymouth College-based gold medallists have already received their England selection letters to represent their country in the 37th WISE Home International in Crawley during March next year, where they will face Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Plymouth College swimmers also brought home three individual silver medals and one bronze.
In the relays, Plymouth swimmers were part of three gold medal-winning teams, six silvers and one bronze. Adam John was part of the Intermediate 200m Medley relay team, which saw them smash the existing English record set in 2002 and in the Senior 200m Medley, Ben Clark was part of the team that knocked 0.6 of a second off the existing record.
Plymouth College Director of Swimming, Jon Rudd, said: “For Plymouth College swimmers to swim inside five English Schools’ records at this meet is quite remarkable. Our swimmers have come away from Manchester with 17 National medals across the two days and of the six team captains selected by Division 5, one for each age group and gender, four of them were from Plymouth College. We will now wait and see if any further Plymouth swimmers are added to the WISE relay teams”.
For further information please contact Stephi Baker on 01752 203241
