Back in the Pool! Prep pupils score 'Personal Bests' in first Swim Gala

It was a real pleasure to welcome Thomas' Battersea to Latymer Sports Centre for the first swim Gala since March 2020.

Some of our new Year 3 pupils joined the Latymer squad and everyone raced so well and achieved some excellent times. There were 47 Personal bests (Pbs) in total and new Current Squad Records for Sammy (back), Alexandra (breast), Angus (fly) and Owen (free).

The Year 6s team were very strong with Allegra and Harry - in his first gala for Latymer - neck and neck all the way in backstroke and touched together with substantial Pbs for both and there were further good Pbs from Lenny and Livvy in freestyle. 

The Year 5s swam very strongly with a number taking 2 or 3 secs from their previous Pbs: Polina, Lolly, Max and Samuel swam 2 Pbs apiece, Edie and Yingying both improved their backstroke times by 2 secs and Oliver powered down the length in his backstroke race in 19.72 and, for a brief moment before Sammy achieved 19.51 in the Year 6 race, held the Current Squad Record. 

Excellent swimming throughout from the Year 4s whose commitment to training is really paying dividends. All the backstrokers achieved very good Pbs with Eva improving her time by over 2 secs as she fought off a spirited challenge from Kepler, and Emma impressing in her race. There was another great battle in the Year 4 freestyle race between Philip and Josh with Josh just getting the edge and ducking under 20 secs for the first time with Philip so close on 20.04.

The Year 3s, in their first gala, swam and behaved beautifully. They managed 13 Pbs between them, some very substantial: Xander and Tacia improved their back Pbs (swum only 1 month ago in the Trials) by 4 and 5 secs respectively and Daniel won his race by a considerable distance. Huge well done to Liberty (who swam extremely well throughout the gala), Victor, Elodie, Ada, Xander, Daniel, Oliver J, Reya, Tacia, Tara, Annabelle and Joshua. 

This gala was great fun and our thanks to Owen, Angus, Alexandra and the other Year 6s who did a great job marshalling the swimmers and helping the younger ones, especially with the finer points of relay swimming.

Congratulations to Oliver who is our Swimmer of the Meet!!