15 February 2022
Abingdon travelled to Eton last week for a triangular meet with Eton and Marlborough. Abingdon fielded an A and B squad at U14, U16 and U18 level – Eton matched these squads and Marlborough fielded an U16 and U18 team. Out of the 22 races, Abingdon won 17 of them, including all of the U18 races. The Abingdon B teams swam well and students who don’t often get to race got some excellent times and some personal bests.
Notable swims were from Can Tugcetin for the U16 200IM where he swam a 2:17.41 breaking the previous school record of 2:19.00 held by M Esnouf from 2012! Can went on to also break the 50m Breaststroke school record in a time of 30.69, breaking the old record held by Joe Watkiss of 33.18 set in 2021.
As always it was Ethan Richards-Knight who stole the show, swimming up for the U16 team from his usual U14 squad. Ethan smashed the 50m Freestyle (beating much older students) in a time of 25.26, breaking the U16 and U14 records of 26.06 (Chris Skelton 2021) and 26.27 (Ethan Richards-Knight 2021) respectively. Ethan went on to come second in the 50m Butterfly in a time of 27.05. This broke the U14 record of 30.00 (Dan McNamara 2017), the U16 record of 28.43 (Scott Yap 2018) and the U18 record of 27.94 (M Esnouf 2014). However it was decided that perhaps it wouldn’t count for the U18 as it wasn’t an U18 race – we shall debate this further.
Alex Cooper Marcos then went on to break the U18 fly record officially in a time of 27.86. Some other great efforts came from Angus Gore (4th Year) in his first appearance for the school, swimming a 28.78 in a 50 FS and a 28.03 as the anchor leg of a relay – great times!
Ralph Allen, Monty Salmon, Henry Purcell and Paddy Kelleher all had great swims for the U14 squad and won the U14 title overall. The U16 squad of Ethan Richards-Knight, Can Tugcetin, Nick Gurney, Charlie Adams and Angus Gore came a narrow second to Eton overall.
The U18 squad of Chris Skelton, Alex Cooper Marcos, Joe Watkiss and the ever reliable Rory King (in the twilight of his school swimming career) won the U18 section convincingly.
Thanks also to the B team swimmers of:
U14 – Nathan Shestopal, Dan Gurney, Ollie Calcott
U16 – Rob Smith, Tom Jackson, Sam Lockie, Dhruv Hegde
U18 – Ianto Brewer, Johnny James, Will d’Arcy, Henry Dearden
In the B swims, Dan Gurney won his race on the 50 Fly. Will d’Arcy took Chris Skelton all the way on the 100 Backstroke, until Chris finally decided to get a wriggle on a finish strong in the final 5 metres.
Thanks to Eton and Marlborough for an excellent event, we look forward to racing again soon. Next up for the swim team is the Warwick 100s and the Bath and Otter Cup in March.
