ISA National Swimming Finals - 21 January 2018

The Aquatics Centre at the Olympic Park London provided the perfect setting for the ISA National Swimming Finals on Sunday. It was a pleasure to be there to support our three Gateway representatives, Penny D and Lucy Q from Year 6 and Zach C from Year 4. With long periods of inactivity the children waited patiently for their races to begin and when they entered the famous pool they gave everything they could for the London North team who they were representing on the day.

Penny was first up and did tremendously well in her first ever national final, swimming breaststroke with speed and finesse against an extremely strong pool of competitors. Penny would then be joined in the pool by Lucy for the medley relay with both Gateway girls giving strong performances.

After a short lunch break, Lucy returned to the pool for the first of her individual races, the 50m freestyle and gave a blistering performance to secure the silver medal. As she waited to step onto the podium, Lucy was dragged away to partake in the 50 butterfly and unphased by her lack of preparation time, she delivered another silver medal winning performance.

Zach had arrived during the lunch break and despite having to go onto poolside alone, he soon relaxed into his surroundings. After being introduced to his relay team, the newly formed quartet were lining up for their freestyle race. Zach swam the second length and held the team in fourth position where they would eventually finish.

With the day drawing to a close, there was still time for Lucy to secure her third silver medal. This time as part of the London North freestyle relay team, Lucy gave another stellar performance to put her team into the lead after the first leg. The competition was tough though and eventually the North ran out winners. Securing a third silver of the day was an incredible achievement by Lucy and one which she should be immensely proud of. Equally, Penny and Zach were an enormous credit to the school having reached a national final and performed so admirably at one of the world’s most iconic swimming arenas.

Super swimming, magnificent performances, great day out!
TB