Swimming: Sacos School Age Group Championship-International School victorious but misses the clean sweep |15 October 2007
School a clean sweep of the shields in the 10 different age group categories of the 26th edition of the annual event.
After winning seven shields and its swimmers improving eight records last year, International School was determined to go home with a clean sweep of the shields. The school’s swimmers finally captured nine shields and when they were lining up for the victory photo, school headmaster Martin Kennedy, told them:
“No other school has ever won nine shields, I’ll organise something good for you on Tuesday.”
Present to see the young talents in action were National Sports Council (NSC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alain Volcère, Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc) president Antonio Gopal, Seychelles Swimming Association (SSA) chairperson Jean-Paul Adam, high officials of the NSC, schools headteachers, parents and students.
With their preparation coming into last Friday’s finals being very good, it was no surprise to see International School win the boys’ 7-9 years old, girls’ 7-9 years old, boys’ 10-11 years old, girls’ 10-11 years old, boys’ 12-13 years old, girls’ 12-13 years old, boys’ 14-15 years old, girls’ 14-15 years old and boys’ 16 years and over categories.
The only shield which the school did not win was the girls’ 16 years and over category and it lost it by just two points to Independent School.
It is worth noting that International School swimmers have bettered their performances in the last three editions – winning five shields in 2005, seven in 2006 and nine this year.
They could not prove their worth in 2004 because the competition was not organized that year due to the closure of the pools.
During last Friday’s competition, seven records were broken in the 25m and 50m pools. Five of those records were improved by International School swimmers. In fact, Adam Viktora got the record ball rolling in the smaller 25 pool, winning the 50 butterfly race of the 10-11 age group category with a time of 40.74 seconds to improve Dominique D’Offay’s old time of 44.10 seconds set in 2006.
The International School’s 4x25m girls’ 7-9 age freestyle relay team clocked 1 minute 19.13 seconds (1:19.13) to better the old performance of 1:23.50 achieved last year by another team from the same school.
Another Independent School relay team – boys’ 10-11 age category – got the third record, stopping the clock at 2:31.38 in the 4x50m freestyle, thus improving on the old best time of 2:39.58 belonging to International School since 2006.
International School’s swimmers in the girls’ 10-11 age category also re-wrote the record books, winning the 4x50 freestyle relay in 2:57.25. The old time stood at 3:09.19.
The three other records of the day came in the Olympic-size 50m pool. International
School’s Shannon Austin had a good race and clocked 29.49 seconds to pulverize J. Adeline’s 13-year-old school record of 30.81 seconds.
Dwayne Didon is proving to be a young swimmer with a lot of potential. In the 50m breaststroke for boys’ 12-13 years old category, he improved his old best of 39.74 seconds with a new clocking of 38.60 seconds.
The Polytechnic female team were victorious in the 4x50m medley relay with a best time of 2:15.66, erasing the old time of 2:40.29 held by the English River Secondary team since 2002.
G. G.