Swimming team Commended in national awards

Published: 11 November, 2011

Plymouth College's swimming team has been Commended in the Team of the Year category at the Aviva and Daily Telegraph School Sport Matters Awards, held at Twickenham Stadium.  The swimmers were nominated after another highly successful year in the pool.

School Sport Matters is a campaign initiated by The Daily Telegraph six years ago, with Aviva as a sponsorship partner, to celebrate everything that is exemplary in school sport and physical education. The newspaper received hundreds of nominations from schools around the country for this year's awards and luminaries from British sport were there in force to present the awards, hosted by former Olympic medal winners Sally Gunnell and Iwan Thomas. The Team of the Year category was presented by former Arsenal and England footballer turned pundit, Lee Dixon, and Keith Perry, TMG Group Managing Editor (Sport)

Earlier this year Plymouth College cemented its position as the nation's leading swimming school when the team came out on top in the English Schools Swimming Association relays for a fourth consecutive year.  The team won six of the twelve national titles and currently holds six of the twelve national records.

Also this year, three swimmers swam for England in the WISE Home Schools International and another won a gold medal at the World Youth Olympics in Singapore. The school had swimmers representing Great Britain in the European Junior Championships, the European Youth Olympic Festival and the World Junior Championships.

As well as England, Ireland and Wales, Plymouth College boasts elite swimmers from 15 different nations. Between them they hold over 50 senior and junior national records. 

Plymouth College's Director of Swimming, Jon Rudd, said: "I am delighted that the team was Commended at these prestigious award.  The swimmers are really dedicated and passionate about their sport, getting up at 5 a.m. every day to be coached, putting many hours into their training both before and after school.  We work hard to nurture and support them in the classroom as well as the pool and I believe that we are the only swimming programme in the country to have a dedicated school-based boarding house."

Photograph: Lee Dixon, Joe Patching, Jon Rudd, Laura Vertigans, Keith Perry.