A TEAM of nine prep school boys from Kelly College travelled to Millfield this weekend, having qualified for the IAPS National Swimming Championships 2003.
There were 89 prep schools with swimmers who qualified for the finals and 87 schools who actually participated on the day.
The Kelly boys rose to the occasion, starting with a fine win in their first event, the 4x25m medley relay.
Matthew Henry, Oliver Smallwood, Thomas Howe and Benjamin Clark set a new competition record of 58.98, and winning the coveted trophy for this event from Millfield, who had won it for the last six years.
These boys continued to excel with fine performances in their individual events, which were swum as heats and finals.
Matthew Henry was a convincing winner in the U13 backstroke (33.15); Oliver Smallwood fought hard to take the bronze medal in the U13 50m breaststroke (36:00), while Thomas Howe, more a distance specialist, put in a good challenge to take the silver medal (27:14) for the 50m freestyle in the same event.
There were also exciting performances from Michael Wallis in the U12 50m freestyle (30.74) coming second, while young Adam John (U11) had a head-to-head race with Richard Thorne of Fonthill Lodge, finishing a close second (30:81) to Thorne who set a new record in this event.
The U11 freestyle team of Adam John, Liam Yeo, Thomas Wylie and Joe Clark (1:01.62), were a very creditable fourth, only just missing out on the medals.
In the penultimate race the Kelly U13 boys finished as they had started, with a win in the 4x25m freestyle relay race (53.76), only to put on a great display of relay swimming in the next and final event of the day.
This was the 6x25m mixed age medley relay, Matthew Henry (backstroke), Oliver Smallwood (breaststroke), Thomas Howe (butterfly), Liam Yeo, Joe Clark and Adam John (all freestyle) taking the gold medal and setting a new record (1:31.52), breaking the previous record of 1:33.92 held by Millfield since 1999.