On Saturday 19 November, our swimming team headed to the London Aquatics Centre at Olympic Park for the English Schools National Relay Finals.  Going into the competition, the women’s team had qualified 4th fastest in the country for both the medley and freestyle relay.  The men’s team had qualified 12th for the medley relay and 9th for the freestyle. 

The heats for women's freestyle and men's medley were first with the top ten teams making the final. The women were in the final heat drawn next to race favourites Plymouth College. A clean swim from Imogen Smith, Sarah Tripp, Grace Kinnell and Maddie Exton saw the girls finish 2nd in their heat and lying 5th fastest with 7 hundredths of a second splitting 3rd and 5th place.  No changes were made to the team for the final but unfortunately the team were touched out and finished 6th overall.

The men had their work cut out for them in the medley heats needing to improve on qualification to ensure a place in the final.  James Batty led off in the backstroke leg, followed by Elliott de Landro in the breaststroke.  Oliver Broad followed on the fly and Balazs Toth finished with the freestyle.  The boys finished 4th in their heat and had to wait to see if this was enough to qualify. They finished in 15th place overall, sadly missing out on the final. 

The women’s medley relay was led off by Lara Charlton on the backstroke, Sarah Tripp followed on the breastroke, Maddie Exton on the fly and Imogen Smith on the freestyle.  They finished 2nd in their heat and placed 5th going into the final.  The team repeated their performance in the final and held onto 5^th place.

Going into the freestyle the boys had been placed 9th.  James Batty led out and a fantastic swim from Bruno Kempster had the team in 2nd place, Elliott de Landro and Balazs Toth followed and held this place finishing 2nd in their heat.  After the other two heats had taken place, Farnborough were in 4th place going into the final.  A quick reshuffle of the swim order put Balazs on the first leg, followed by Elliot and James with Bruno on the anchor leg.  The boys delivered and swam almost a second faster than their heat, but this was not enough to sneak into the medal places.  They finished 4th behind the likes of Plymouth College and Kelly College. 

A fantastic day at the swimming pool with quality performances all round - well done to all the students involved!