2nd FOBISIA Swimming Championships

The British International School in Phuket (BISP) hosted the 2nd FOBISIA -Swimming Championships from 29th -31st January 2016. BISP amazed us with its impressive facilities, kind and helpful staff and the outstanding organisation of the event. There were 19 British schools from Asia, with more than 600 swimmers participating. The races took place in a 50 meter Olympic size outdoor swimming pool. Eleven courageous swimmers represented Wellington at this prestigious competition. They have sacrificed many hours over the last four months for very challenging and intensive training. Some of the participating teams had up to seventy swimmers in their teams. Therefore all of our swimmers names are worth a mention as they were against some serious competition. Our team was represented by: James Lo (Captain), Leigh-Ann Franetzki, Harriet Rayner, Carol Chok, Damian Tang, Agnes Yu, Tommaso Colombo, Jade Franetzki, Daniel Wareham, Thierry Nqai and Thomas Canning. The Wellington Team has spent three days, competing in some very tough battles in the swimming pool. Some of their races were decided and won by only milliseconds. Our swimmers showed impressive fighting spirit and determination for great results and achievements besides the fact that they are used to a different training and racing environment. They train and race in 25m pools for the most of the school or academic year which is significantly different to racing in 50 metre pools due for multiple reasons. Therefore their results and achievements have even more weight. In many races we managed to get the first, second or third positions on the pedestal. More than ninety percent of our total races finished with personal best times and new school records being set. - Tommaso Colombo came home with 6 individual gold medals and one silver and bronze in the relay races. - Jade Franetzki won one gold and four silver medals in her individual events and one bronze in the relays. - Agnes Yu won one gold, two silver and three bronze medals in her individual events and one bronze in the relay races. - Leigh-Ann Franetzki won one silver and one bronze in her individual races and one bronze in the relay races. - Thierry Nqai won two silver medals in the individual events and one silver and bronze in the relay races. - Damian Tang won three bronze medals in his individual races. - Daniel Wareham won one bronze in the individual events and one silver and bronze in the relay races. - Thomas Canning won one silver and one bronze medal in the relay races. - Harriet Rayner won bronze medal in the relays. In the overall standings, Tommaso Colombo won the award for best swimmer in the ten-years-old age group. Jade Franetzki came second in the overall rankings for the ten-years-old and Agnes came third in the eleven-years-old age group.  Wellington won the award of 3rd place overall for ‘quality performance- team’ calculated on points per swimmer. A massive well done to everyone participating and we look forward to our next FOBISIA Swimming Championships! [wellington_wistia]rmr0ayzj10[/wellington_wistia] Alex Miladinovski Head of swimming