On Saturday 19th Nov at the Olympic Pool eight City of Oxford Swimming Club swimmers represented their school, The Cherwell Academy, at the English School Swimming Association Championships (ESSA) Team Championships.
ESSA brings together swim teams from secondary schools all over the country in divisional qualifying rounds and then the top 30 qualifying relay teams are invited to the annual ESSA Championships.
The Cherwell senior girls team, Emily Wood, Amy Coombs, Olivia Webster and Weiyi Tan went into the Championships ranked 22nd in the Freestyle Relay and 28th in the Medley Relay and after strong heat swims made finals in both events. The girls went on to finish an impressive 8th in both the freestyle and medley relay finals. Emily Nisbet and Lily Seward were also part of the original qualifying team but were unable to attend the championships.
The Cherwell junior girls Evie McLean, Illizane Pinfold, Gretel Goodgame and Meg Smit entered the championships ranked 13th in the Freestyle relay and 5th in the Medley relay following the divisional rounds. On the day they booked their place in the finals of both relays ranked 9th and 5th respectively after impressive heat swims.
The junior girls went on to make the podium taking an incredible third place in the finals for both events.
COSC swimmers Daniel McNamara and Nick Skelton also qualified for the championships as part of the Abingdon School relay teams in both events.
Senior & Junior teams l-r (Gretel, Illizane, Olivia, Weiyi, Amy, Emily, Megan, Evie)