On Tuesday 1 February the swimming club took six squads to the new Weald and Downland Trophy meeting, held at Tonbridge. This was a five-way match where College swimmers competed against teams from Benenden, Epsom College, King's Canterbury and Tonbridge. The standard of swimming was high and the individual performances were strong. Fourteen new personal best times were set and three school records broken. The senior girls (Chloe Cook, Pascale Davies, Rebecca Eaton and Chloe Pollard) came away the proud winners of the Downland Trophy and the junior girls ( Angel Chiu, Sarah Curry [absent from photo], Molly Reynolds, Rebecca Towey and Dorothy Wilson) shared the Kent Trophy with the team from Benenden. Both the senior and intermediate boys finished in second place after Tonbridge, with the remaining College teams finishing in third place.
On 13 February ten pupils travelled to Crystal Palace for the Schools Biathlon semi-finals. Following success in this event in previous years, the biathletes were hoping to maintain the College’s strong reputation for producing national finalists in this competition. Unfortunately illness and injury prevented the girls from competing in the team event but they put up a spirited performance in the individual event, with Chloe Pollard finishing in seventh place. The Year 9 boys team (Ed Cudlipp, Luke Howard and James McNeilly) performed well and were placed fourth while the Year 10 boys (Josh Pankhurst, Billy Reeves and Hector Veasey, pictured below) went one better and finished with bronze medals.
Chloe and both boys’ teams were placed high enough in the national rankings to earn themselves a place in the finals next month, making this the fifth consecutive year that College pupils have reached the finals.
A fortnight later, Chloe competed at the county championships and earned herself four gold, two silver and one bronze medal in her seven races as well as seven personal best times and four regional qualifying times.
Despite being ill Josh Pankhurst also won a gold and two silvers at the county championships before having to retire from the rest of the competition, suffering from a virus.