Inter House Swimming Gala
Thursday 9th February saw Reading Central pool host the annual St Edward’s Prep inter house swimming gala. Fifty races were scheduled for the afternoon finishing with the highly entertaining relays.
The races were very competitive and many of the races finished with very little distance between the house competitors. The afternoon kicked off with the freestyle races closely followed by the breaststroke and back crawl races. The afternoon finished off with the exciting team relays, with St David’s taking the Year 3/4 team relay and St George’s taking the honours in the Year 5/6 team relay race. Year 6 capped off a wonderful afternoon by taking part in the optional underwater challenge and Alex L. managed to swim an impressive 25m underwater.
Although no records were broken, two boys came incredibly close. Edward S. came within one second of the freestyle record and shows his dedication to swimming in and out of school. Oliver C. was a second off the freestyle record for Year 4 and within milliseconds of beating the back crawl record which has stood for now over 10 years. Both boys deserve a lot of credit for coming so close. However, it was the first year that both Year 3 & 4 took part in the 75m Individual Medley and both Edward and Olivier have now registered record times to beat in the years to follow.
There was a great atmosphere throughout the afternoon with all the houses supporting their competitors intensely though their races and helping them to finish strongly. Sportsmanship was shown strongly throughout the event and a particular special mention to Elias C. of St George’s who shook hands with all his fellow competitors at the end of his race.
The gala proved to be a fantastic afternoon of swimming for everyone involved and demonstrated how far many of the boys have progressed and improved in their swimming. The final results revealed a clear winner in St David’s. St George’s and St Patrick’s finished in joint second with St Andrew’s finishing fourth in the annual event.