Foundation Magazine 2021-2022 | Mount Kelly

SWIMMING
The return of the Swim England National
Winter Championships saw us come
away with our best ever medal haul – an
impressive 24 in total – with 10 Open
Mount Kelly records broken along the way.
Medalists were: Leah Whittaker (3 Gold, 3
Silver), Erin Little (3 Gold, 1 Bronze), Hollie
Widdows (3 Silver, 1 Bronze), Matthew
Ward (1 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze), Hazal
Ozkan (1 Silver, 2 Bronze), Riccardo
Lucarelli (1 Bronze), Jacob Armon (1
Bronze) and Ruby Griffiths (1 Bronze).
Over in Swansea, our Para Swimmers
travelled for the National Para-Swimming
Winter Championships. The three boys:
Seb Williams, Leo McCrea and Alex
Hobbs came away from the competition
with 5 medals (Leo 2 Gold, 1 Bronze &
Seb 1 Gold, 1 Silver) and 9 personal bests
(Alex 2, Leo 2 & Seb 5).
At the other home Nations Winter
Championships, Mount Kelly
performances were highlighted with Gold
medals from Amelia Riggott and Sophie
Brassington, Silver Medals from Sophie
Brassington, Isis Van Der Stroom and
Emily Forwood and a Bronze medal from
Brydan Byrne.
LENT TERM
A benchmark meet in the season always
comes at the start of the Lent Term in the
form of the Devon County Championships,
which this year were being held in long
course format. As the first long course
meet, it is a great way to start the second
half of the season for the swimmers so
they can gauge current level and set
targets moving into the summer. Mount
Kelly concluded the 2022 Devon County
Championships with a total of 12 Senior
Titles, 24 Junior Titles and a huge 302 Age
Group Medals (106 Golds, 108 Silvers &
88 Bronze) and a great springboard to go
into the rest of the long course season.
As March rolled around, it was the highly
anticipated Arena League Final being
held in Cardiff and the opportunity for
Mount Kelly to defend our title as reigning
champions from 2020. The whole team
were flawless in their racing and we
stormed to an emphatic victory by almost
40 points over second place. Each and
every swimmer represented the school in
style and the team spirit once again shone
through on the day. A special mention
goes to Hollie Widdows and Adbuljabar
Adama who both won top swimmer
awards.
Further afield, Prep swimmer Christina
Angelakis raced in Thessaloniki and the
Greek Nationals where she brought home
6 National titles (3 individuals & 3 relays).
All this whilst back at home our Prep and
Development swimmers collected a total
of 114 medals at the Two Counties meet,
which subsequently gave them qualifying
times for South West Regionals.
SWIMMING
In February, our 3 para swimmers travelled
to Aberdeen for the British Para Swimming
International Meet, which welcomed some
of the best para swimmers from around
the world. With a great level of exposure for
our boys, they performed admirably and
between them came away with 3 World
Para Swimming final swims; 5 British Para
finals swims and 3 British medals courtesy
of Seb Williams (1 Gold & 2 Bronze).
A selection of 7 Mount Kelly swimmers
(Arun Oeklers, Ella Bainbridge, Leah
Whittaker, Jack McMeekin, Lotta Schulze,
Blythe Kinsman and Sam Williamson)
were chosen to represent the South
West team at the ESSA Inter-divisional
Championships in Coventry going up
against all the other regions in the country.
All swimmers came away from the
competition with at least 1 medal each,
1 Open Mount Kelly record was broken
and Leah was awarded the Top Swimmer
award. All of their efforts helped the South
West finish in 3rd place.
Instead of winding down with lots of
chocolate over the Easter holidays, the
swimmers ramped up to their biggest
competition of the season so far. In
Sheffield we had the most successful
British Championships in Mount Kelly’s
history. With 68 athletes meeting the
qualifying times, 58 travelled to Yorkshire
to compete across 6 days of action
against the best in the country. It was
an outstanding week of racing from
our athletes, who handled themselves
professionally and diligently prepared for
their racing. The week was highlighted
with:
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