Culmination of the Shanghai Swim League: Individual medals and 4th place overall

The Wellington swim squad headed out to the Oriental Sports Centre for the RSS long course meet, the biggest one of the year. Over 1,000 swimmers drawn from schools all across China were present on the day and the competition looked very tough indeed. The day started off with the under 10s competing in 20 different events and collecting heat winner bracelets along the way. For many of them, it was their first time swimming in a 50-metre pool, which was buzzing with noise and excitement. The 11-year-olds and over group then followed with equal enthusiasm, securing plenty of new personal bests. As usual, our coaches never stopped cheering us on and motivating us to give our maximum effort, right from the start until the very end of the day. The meet offered a great opportunity for us swimmers to demonstrate how all of our hard work, dedication and training had paid off, as we finished 4th on the overall ranking out of 37 teams, winning 6 gold, 14 silver and 7 bronze medals in total. It was a great experience and an excellent way to end the season, with such an outstanding effort from everyone who participated. Lucia, Year 12