Saturday, 2nd February 2019
Day Three – Swimming
The third and final day of the World School Games saw the team head out to the Hamdan sports complex. Literally, a very large blue building, right in the middle of the desert!
Let me set the scene inside. Take yourself back to 2005 when OAKA was shiny and new, now add in comfy chairs and a sparkling clean poolside. Oh and over 500 excitable swimmers!!!
We started the day with the freestyle relays. This year they ran an A and B team relay. All 4 teams swam really well with the girls A and B coming in 14th and 20th respectively and the boys were 14th and 25th out of a total of 40 teams!
The individual heats went well, with some great times. A few PBs were smashed (Ioannis P I’m talking about you!) and the times to make the finals were all tight. A fantastic performance in both of their heats made us think that Athina and Konstantinos were in with a chance of making the finals. When their times came through they were exceptional – however they both came in 15th place, with their times within less one second of making the final!! An outstanding swim from both of them.
In the girls backstroke, both of our girls – Luisa and Leticia had a flying swim… they were both so much on form that they finished with THE EXACT SAME TIME!!! Bringing them in joint 17th position.
Hippocrates had a flying start in the breaststroke and was first to make the turn at the 25m mark. He flew down the other half and with an excellent time made the final in 6th place! The finals took place and it was neck and neck all the way, he turned in about 3rd place and was looking strong down the home straight, he couldn’t keep the lanes outside at bay and finished with a wonderful time in 6th place!
I think if we were to award an outstanding swim of the day it would have been that one!
The afternoon session got underway but not after our very own Struan won the chance to race against Olympic silver medallist Robbie Renwick! What an opportunity! And such a nice guy!! He came around after the race and all of our children got a chance to play with a real Olympic medal!!!!
The last races of the day were the two medley relays. We had two very strong teams and the girls kicked it off with a brilliant race. There were a lot of nerves going into it, but they didn’t let it show. With a quick time, the girls flew home in 9th place overall and chasing them behind was the boys team who faced an extremely tough heat. They finished feeling demoralized, coming home 9th in their heat. What they hadn’t realized was just how fast their heat was, and their swim put them in 10th place overall!
A fantastic day was had by all and the cheering and excitement up in the stands was wonderful to see. All of the children really did themselves proud and should all feel pleased with their swims!
Now we await the final results – they will be posted soon and we’ll be able to celebrate what we thought were some excellent performances! And a superb final day to complete a memorable three days.
