The last 4 weekends have seen 15 of Taunton School’s finest swimmers compete at the Somerset County Championships for Taunton Deane Swimming.
Swimmers from across the Prep and Senior school competed in a range of events excelling across the board from the long distance 1500m events to the 50 freestyles. Swimmers had to swim heats and finals for every event under 400m long. With a young team we can be very proud of the way they did this, both, winning by large margins, and getting into finger tip finishes for the medals. For many of our swimmers it was their first appearance at the championships and they handled it well.
Nearly 100% of swims were life time best swims, with only a few times not being improved on, so the championships really were a massive success our swimmers. Emily Yap, former National Champion, returning to the pool producing some seasoned and very fast relay performances alongside Hetty James in one of the highlight swims of the meet inspiring the many TPS pupils present.
Hetty James: 7th 50 Free and Silver in relay.
Emily Yap: 2 relays Silvers
Jonny Cole swam in 4 events, recording best times. Abigail Norman and Makena Nesbitt also represented Taunton Deane and Skyla Coates Bridgwater Swimming Club.
The Prep School, had many impressive performances including the following:
Macey Barrett: 7th 400 freestyle, 7th 200 breastroke, 6th 200 breast
Chloe Bown: Bronze 50 backstroke, 4th 50 breastroke
Sophia Johnson: 4th 800 freestyle, 5th 200 freestyle, 5th 200 backstroke, 4th 400 freestyle, Bronze 200 breastroke, 4th 200 IM, 5th 100 backstroke.
Oliver Butler: Bronze 800 freestyle, Silver 400IM, silver 100 butterfly, gold 200 fly and 2 bronze in relays.
Jack Butler: Gold 1500 freestyle, 800 freestyle, 400 IM, 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle, Silver 200 backstroke, 200 butterfly, Bronze 100 freestyle, 100 butterfly and in 2 x relays.
Holly Cleverly: Bronze 400 freestyle, 8th 200 freestyle.
Tom Ford: Silver 1500, 6th 100 backstroke, 8th 50 breastroke, 8th 200 breastroke, 8th 400 freestyle, 8th 100 breastroke.
Ollie Heard: Gold 1500, Bronze 400 freestyle, 4th in 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 freestyle, silver in 2 x relays
Skye McLaughlin: Gold 200 butterfly, Silver 50 butterfly, Bronze 100 butterfly
Jack White: 7th 200 breastroke, 200 freestyle, 5th 400 freestyle and 50 butterfly.
Others qualifying for the first time, and offering up some very impressive and progressive performances were:
Amelie Thomas, Tobey Lewis, Daria Bogdanska, Madison Willetts.
This very talented group of Taunton School swimmers helped Taunton Deane Swimming Club continue their dominance as one of the top two clubs in the County over the last 15 years, with only Millfield ever beating them through this period. It’s an impressive achievement and one we all hope continues.
Graham Davidson
Swimming Coach
