EIGHT Salisbury Stingrays swimmers qualified for the National Schools Biathlon Championships last month.

In total, more than 1,600 school competitors from across the UK swam in the Olympic Pool at the London Aquatics Centre and ran around a course at the Olympic Park.

The younger athletes tackled a 50m swim and 800m run with the distances increasing to 200m and 1600m in both events respectively for the oldest competitors.

Daisy Ullyatt, Abigail Burn, Emma Jackson, Lily Battersby, Clare Southon and the Croagers (Freya, Hannah and Robert) all qualified for the event through their results in regional competitions.

The best results for Stingrays came from Abigail - her strong eighth place in the run enabled her to claim 11th place overall in the under 13s. Elsewhere, in the under 16s category, Clare placed twelfth.

Robert commented: “I watched Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington swim at the Olympics in 2012 and now I have swam in the same pool - how cool is that?”