KELLY College sent a team of swimmers to compete in the South West Biathlon (run/swim) at Millfield in Somerset.
The Kelly swimmers performed very well in the run, most of them beating their times from the previous week. The swimming also produced some personal bests. Kelly achieved several individual national qualifiers and four teams qualified.
The Youth E boys' team of Peter Meachin, Mark Brend and Oliver Lake were the first Kelly College team to qualify for the nationals next month.
Oliver came third in the swim and sixth in the run, making him third overall. Mark came second in the swim and eighth in the run, finishing fourth overall. Peter Meachin came 11th overall, with Frazer Bayliss, a year younger than the other boys, finishing 12th overall.
The second Kelly team to qualify by being placed second in the team event were the Youth D boys with Gregg Shrosbree (first in swim and second in run) winning the overall individual championship. Lawrence Oxborough, seventh overall, and Adam John, 11th overall, were the three that made up the team. Tristan Hext, competing in his first biathlon, came in 24th.
The final Kelly boys' team to qualify for the National Championships were Youth C boys Alexander Richards (second run, =ninth swim) placed second overall, Matthew Henry (fifth run, fourth swim), fifth overall and Phillip Channon 14th overall made up the three members who finished second in the team event.
Kelly had a second team in this age group who were placed third, just missing out on qualification. The team of Will Cummings, Jonathan Sprague and Joshua Lake placed 20th, 16th and seventh respectively.
Kyle Bayliss and Thomas Legeland were in the Youth B boys' section and finished just outside the qualifiers in seventh and ninth place.
Matthew Slator, Youth A boys, a former national biathlon champion, easily won his group, placing firth in the run and swim, with Matthew Hill, third swim and third run, placed sixth overall, both boys qualifying for this year's national championships.
The Kelly girls in Youth D girls who qualified for the national championships by being placed second in the team event were Laura Sprague, sixth, Amy Bayliss, seventh, and Annie Tinsley eighth. In Youth B girls, Rebecca Smith, first swim, ninth run, qualified in sixth position, with Sophie Stanford, tenth, and Meghan Spence, 12th, just outside qualification.
Richard Brady in the senior men's was placed second and Bernie Shrosbree in the masters was placed first, both qualifying to compete in Sheffield next month.
Omitted from last week's schools biathlon results was Peter Meachin in the boys' Year 5 age group, who qualified for the Schools National Championships next March by being placed sixth in the swim, eighth in the run and sixth overall.