CGS Swimming Club Report 2015-2016

The first year of the CGS swimming team was a most successful one.The season started, as usual, with the Ulster Minor Schools Swimming Championships for the junior team.There was a large turnout for this competition and some excellent performances.Rory Telfer, Tom Curry, Henry McCallum and Toby McClarty combined to win silver medals in both the freestyle and medley relay events and Rory claimed CGS’s first individual gold medal in the 50m breaststroke.The girls relay team of Ellen Walls, Lucy McCallum, Millie Dallas and Robyn Fraser won bronze medals in the freestyle relay.

The October half-term holiday saw Molly Curry travel to Tenerife for an intensive training week with the Ulster Schools team.She was also selected to represent Ulster in the Irish Inter-Provincial Championships where she played a major role in ensuring an overall win for Ulster by taking second place in the 100m breaststroke.

In the Ulster Grammar Schools’ Championships, Molly Curry won the junior breaststroke final by a considerable margin and then took her place in the relay team along with Ellen Walls, Millie Dallas and Cathryn Davidson to pick up bronze medals in the medley and freestyle relays.Liam Webb added to the medal tally with a silver medal in a very competitive junior backstroke final and Albert Dallas swam very well to qualify for the intermediate backstroke final.

The Ulster Secondary Schools Championships saw Albert’s hard training pay off as he won a bronze medal in the intermediate boys backstroke event and also qualified for the freestyle final.Liam Webb’s strong performances in the individual events saw him gain selection for the Ulster Schools trip to Tenerife next October.

The swimming season culminated with the annual trip to the Olympic pool in London to compete in the Bath Cup, an invitational relay gala for HMC schools.Both the girls and boys teams were very young but gained valuable experience by competing at this level and will no doubt be competing for medals over the next few years.

Prior to this event, the girls team of Heidi Mitchell, Molly Curry, Cathryn Davidson, Amber Doak and Charlotte Anderson competed at a gala which took place at Whitgift School.The team put in some excellent individual and relay performances to finish in second place overall. This result augurs extremely well for the future as the team will remain largely the same for many years to come. The boys team of Niall Evans, Thomas Kelly, Owen Montgomery, Albert Dallas and Alastair Telfer and Liam Webb travelled to St Pauls School together with Campbell College and RBAI to compete in a twelve school invitational event where they gained experience in a gala of very high quality.

The swimming club shows great promise for the future and looks forward to welcoming swimmers of all abilities next year.

 

Bath Cup 2016

 

On a wet Wednesday morning in March, eleven of us arrived at the Castlerock Road site, very excited about the next four days away in London. Mr Knox and Miss Watters were in charge of the first mixed CGS school sports trip.

On arrival in London after settling into our hotel rooms, Mr Knox gave us a crash course on using the London Underground and after a walk to Trafalgar Square and the obligatory photos and selfies, we had tea and prepared for our galas the next day.

On Thursday morning after a tour of the London Sea Life Aquarium (or the London Dungeons) the girls, led by Mr Knox, heading via tube and train to Whitgift School for the pre-Bath Cup inter-schools gala. Whitgift School is a large private school in South Croydon. After admiring the school zoo, gym and sports facilities (with an element of jealousy) we arrived at the girls changing rooms in preparation for the gala in their 25m eight-lane variable-depth Swimming Pool.

We were a team of 5 girls (Heidi Mitchell, Charlotte Anderson, Amber Doak, Catherine Davidson and me) ranging from Yr 10 to Yr 14. We competed in 2 relays, and 5 different individual events. We were competing against 7 other, mainly private, English schools and came 2^nd overall after coming 2^nd in both relays and winning the breaststroke and coming 3^rd in the butterfly. After supper supplied by Whitgift we headed back to the hotel to find out how the boys (Thomas Kelly, Alister Telfer, Owen Montgomery, Nial Evans, Albert Dallas and Liam Webb) had performed at the all-male St Paul’s Gala.

The boys have traditionally competed in this event for many years and once again enjoyed a gala against many of the top schools swimming teams in the UK with a very strong team from RBAI winning.

The next morning was the big day. Our chance to swim competitively in the London 2012 Olympic pool. A chance many National swimmers have not had!

With a relatively young female team we were up first in the Bath Cup competition. The Bath Cup is make up of Freestyle relays – 50m for girls and 100m for the boys.We came 24^th out of 63 teams. The boy’s team came next and ended up 54^th out of 79 after some hard swimming.

The Otter Medley is the medley relay event for both girls and boys. We were all feeling confident that we could improve on our freestyle overall positions. With some swimmers making new personal best times the female relay team came 15^th.

The Bath Cup is an amazing event allowing us to swim in the Olympic Pool against the top UK schools. We all felt so lucky and so proud that Coleraine Grammar was competing at such a high level and in such prestigious surroundings.

We are all looking forward to next year’s competition already. Better keep training!

Molly Curry

10S3

 

Bath Cup 2016

Going to the Bath Cup in London is the highlight of my year! The feeling of the competition and walking around the Olympic pool is a feeling that not many will experience. Even without the swimming, the trip is great as we get tours around London seeing all the world famous monuments and buildings. This was my second time competing in the Bath Cup, but it was the first time with the new Coleraine Grammar School including the girls.
Mr Knox is excellent at getting us built up for the event and begins early with training at the school pool during lunchtime, after school and during games periods.

We left for London on a Wednesday morning, meeting in the quad all dressed in our new Bath Cup swimming hoodies and school kit. We were a team of 12, 7 boys and 5 girls. The boys team consisted of Thomas Kelly, Alister Kelly, Owen Montgomery, Niall Evans, Liam Webb and me. The girls team was Heidi Mitchell, Charlotte Anderson, Catherine Davidson, Amber Doak and Molly Currie.

Once we had arrived in London and checked into our hotel, we once again had another lesson on how to use the tubes to refresh my memory from last year. Later that night we had a little walk around the hotel and had something to eat.

The next morning, we had our breakfast in the hotel and then we had the whole day free in London until the invitational gala at St Pauls, Hammersmith, which started at in the evening . We first went and got our day tube tickets and then set off to Oxford Street to have a look around all of the shops. There is literally every shop you could imagine so there was plenty to choose from for everyone.

Later that evening we set off to St Pauls which our school has been competing in for many years against 11 other schools in England. RBAI won the gala which was a great performance from there team.

The next day was the day we had all been waiting for, the day of the Bath Cup which took place in the London Olympic pool, where all swimmers aspire to compete in.

The Bath Cup is a relay of 100m freestyle for each swimmer in the team of 4. The girls relay team had a good performance for their first time at the competition and placed 24th out of 63 teams which was a great performance.

Our relay of 4 boys, Thomas Kelly, Alister Telfer, Owen Montgomery and Albert Dallas, we came 54th out of 79 teams with some hard competition.

Our Otter Medley team of Thomas Kelly, Alister Telfer, Niall Evens and Albert Dallas performed very well and although we were not highly placed, the team gained valuable experience of competing at the highest level.

The Bath Cup is a great trip and this was no exception. The feeling of swimming in the Olympic pool made me feel like a professional swimmer. I am privileged to swim in such a great event with so many excellent swimmers competing at a very high level of swimming.

Thank you to the two teachers Mr knox and Mrs Watters for taking such a great trip for all the pupils and to everyone that helped with the fundraising for the trip. I am already be looking forward to next year’s trip!

Albert Dallas Yr11