WESTVILLE Boys’ High School swimmers had another outstanding year, having won the Westville Interprovincial Invitational Gala and the Alan Burt Invitational Gala the previous weekend, and now the Durban and Districts Gala.
These first two galas are considered to be the top relay galas in the country. Furthermore, the long-distance swimmers had once again excelled at Midmar Mile, with Jordan Le Clos and Joshua Dannhauser finishing in the top 10 in the men’s race.
What was a little disappointing was that the KZN Top 8 Gala, which pits the top boys’ schools in the province against each other, had to be cancelled at Hilton College because of bad weather.
A new twist to the gala this year was the inclusion by Glenwood of a number of swimmers from India who are currently contracted to be trained by SA coach, Graham Hill, and who are boarding and schooling at Glenwood. These swimmers are being groomed for future international competition and the WBHS squad was rather uneasy about how they would fare against them.
The first events of the evening were the 4×50 metres freestyle relays. WBHS won four of the five age group races, only losing the U16 event to Glenwood. Clifton College placed second in the U14, U15 and U19 races, with Kearsney picking up a second in the U17 race.
Westville won three of the five races in the breaststroke, losing the U16 and U17 events to Glenwood. The swimming super-school then kicked into top gear, winning 13 of the final 16 events. Glenwood managed to claim the U16 backstroke, U16 butterfly and U16 medley, otherwise it was all one-way traffic for Westville.
The highway giants ended up winning 20 of the 26 races with their U14, U15 and U19 age groups unbeaten.
The final scores were WBHS 192 points, Glenwood 162 points, Clifton 158 points, Kearsney 153 points, Northwood 98 points and finally DHS with 86 points.
