On Friday 8th March, nine Wellington swimmers took the long journey into London to the Bath Cup relay competition. Contested in the 2012 Olympic Pool, this is the high point of the swimming calendar each year. Teams travel from as far as Belfast and Guernsey for the fixture, and the top swim teams in the HMC are represented. The Wellington team has had steadily improving results over the past four years, and this year was no exception!

The girls set the tone for the day with their 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay. Neve M. entered the water first and smashed out a new all-time Wellington 50m Freestyle record. One by one, Becky S., Jemima A. and Caitlin L. followed her, with all three swimmers getting personal best times and very narrowly missing the Wellington record for the event. They improved on last year’s 29th place finish, coming 22nd out of the 38 girls’ teams. A tremendous result!

For the first time since Wellington started attending the Bath Cup more than 10 years ago, the boys’ 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay team made it to the finals, where they improved upon their 14th place finish last year, and their 10th place preliminary time from this year, finishing 9th out of the 45 schools in the tougher ‘large school’ category finals. Toby R. led things off with a new 100 Freestyle season record for the team, and was followed up by Eliot D., Laurin S. and Jack C., with Laurin S. and Eliot D. logging personal bests of their own. This fantastic performance crushed the Wellington College school record in the event by more than five seconds!

With very tough acts to follow from the morning, the boys’ Medley Relay rose to the challenge, and again, for the first time, secured a spot in the finals. Toby R. again took the lead-off backstroke leg and set the season record, followed up by Zack K. (breaststroke), Eliot D. (butterfly) and Laurin S. (freestyle). Zack and Eliot logged PBs, and Laurin not only logged a PB in the prelims but improved on it in the finals. After finishing 16th in last year’s event, the boys secured a 10th place finish in a fast field. Just like in the boys’ morning swim, the team’s great performance secured a school record in the event, beating the previous record by nearly four seconds!