David Breaks World Record

David Hill of Kelly College took a step closer to his dream of representing his country at the Para-Olympic Games in Athens in September. The teenager competed along with three other Kelly swimmers at the British Long Course Championships in Sheffield which were also the Olympic trials for GB team selection in able bodied and multi-disability events. The team attended the four day event over the Easter period accompanied by coach, Robin Brew.

David swam in four events, making it to finals in three of them and in the process produced personal best times in all four. The World Record in the S9 disability category of the 50m backstroke, previously held by Britain’s current 100m WR holder James Crisp, was broken twice by David - once in the heat and then again in the final and his performance in the 100m backstroke was a 6 second improvement and moved him to within 0.3 seconds of the Olympic qualifying standard. His time in the 100m freestyle was also a 6 second PB and his achievements at this competition will help him prepare for the Para-Olympic trials in May where he will hopefully book his ticket to Athens.

David’s Kelly team captain, Jack Cockerton also made it to the trials in 3 events - 100m and 200m breaststroke and 200m IM. In his favoured event, the 200m breaststroke, he produced a 2 second PB which moved him up the rankings to become the second fastest 16 year old nationally despite not yet having reached his 16^th birthday. Jack is hoping that this result is good enough to earn him selection to the GB breaststroke training camp early next season. In his other events, Jack again produced personal best times knocking   seconds of his 100m breaststroke and   seconds of his 200IM.

Amanda Sanderson continued her fine form from the Devon County competitions, in her 200m backstroke and 200m freestyle producing improved times by   seconds and   seconds respectively, showing that she was in no way phased by the competition.

The youngest team member, Holly Yeo  (13), swam only one event which was her favourite 100m breaststroke and improved on her entry time by a quarter of a second.

It was a great achievement by all the swimmers to qualify for British swimming’s premier competition which brought them together with such a high calibre field and gave them valuable competition experience at the top level. Well done to all.