26 April 2017
Wednesday 26 April saw Abingdon host the annual Griffen Gala for which Abingdon School teamed up with swimmers from Abingdon Prep School, The Manor Prep, and St Helen and St Katharine School to swim against the local Abingdon Vale Swimming Club (AVSC). With the event expanding this year to include swimmers from under 10 through to under 18 it was great to see swimmers of all ages demonstrating their ability in the pool having spent hours training and honing their skills.
In what is the last swimming event of the year, the Abingdon team again showed their quality against the highly competitive AVSC. The U18s, despite their best efforts came off second best to a very strong AVSC team, whilst the U16s swam exceptionally to beat their counterparts 64 points to 62 with the result coming down to the final race of the evening which the Abingdon team won by 1.8 seconds! Having had an outstanding season, the U14s finished the term with another highly impressive display winning all 7 of their races, Daniel McNamara set a new school record for the 50m Butterfly and Nicholas Skelton for the 100m Individual Medley.
The U14 squad, which has consisted of Josh Roche, Daniel McNamara, Nicholas Skelton, Luca Frauenfeld and Scott Yap have now broken 11 of the 12 under 14 age group schools records this academic year.
Overall, the School’s team came off second best, however the Abingdon boys should be extremely proud of their efforts, winning two of the three age categories they were represented in.
