Barnet snatched gold in the 2016 Balfour Beatty London Youth Games Mini Swimming event, courtesy a last gasp victory in the final race of the gala.
Finishing on a total of 479, just 10 points separated Barnet from second placed Southwark in the overall standings, after the north London borough won the girls relay medley race to jump into the lead, with Bexley claiming the final spot on the podium.
After such a tense finale, Barnet team manager, Calvin Biss, admitted to feeling the nerves kick in as he realized the strong performances from his team put them in contention for a medal.
“It was very nerve-wracking going all the way to the last event, I thought we might have finished second but luckily enough we shaded it by 10 points,” said Calvin.
“It was a good team performance, depth from the boys and the girls, PBs on every individual event, I couldn’t ask of any more from the guys.”
Calvin put the wining performance down to the excellent team bond among his swimmers, and insists now they have won once, they have developed a definite taste for gold next year.
“They all know each other really well, they’ve been training together on and off for different clubs for a few years now and it’s just a solid team. They all get on well and they’re all friends,” explained Calvin.
“Now that we’ve won it once we plan to come back and win it again. There’ll more hard work as we go back to the drawing board but there’ll be big swims ahead.”
Throughout the field the competition was fierce, especially in the race for bronze where four boroughs were all within 15 points of another for that final podium spot.
But Bexley rallied to win two of the last four races and finish on 415 points, ahead of Sutton on 411, Wandsworth on 408 and Havering on 400.