BUCS SUCCESS

On Sunday afternoon a mixed team of experienced and novice Loughborough swimmers attended the BUCS Team Finals at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge. The team proved their quality by winning the competition allowing Loughborough to complete a clean sweep of all three BUCS swimming events this year which included the BUCS Long and Short course championships.

The league final started off with success in the 4 x 50 Medley relays with the men’s team  winning. Richard Molloy led off the team in a new personal best time for the 50m back. He was supported by Euan Dale, Andy Bushell and Tom Foley.

The women’s relay of Becky Jenkins, Emma Gardner, Hannah Allen and Julie Douglas finished 2^nd. This relay saw the  return to the University swim team of Julie Douglas. Julie returned to the University last September to undertake a PhD course Julie agreed to come out of retirement for this event and she produced three excellent swims. She followed up the 2^nd place in the relay with a win in the individual 50m fly and then followed this by helping the women’s team of Rachel Bowen, Rebecca Jenkins and Claudia Coleman to success in the 4 x 50 free relay.

Claudia Coleman and Euan Dale followed the relay success with fast times and individual wins in the 100m IM. Claudia and Euan both followed this race with further swift swims in the women’s 50m & 100m free & 50m & 100m breast individuals respectively. Both swimmers finished the meet with team success in women’s and Men’s 4 x 50 free relay.

Andy Bushell followed the fast times being set by many of the team by producing a new lifetime best time in the 100m free of 50.30. He followed this up by going under 23 seconds for the first time, producing a time of 22.93 in the Men’s 50m free.

Joseph Jelley completed the backstroke double by both winning the 50m & 100m back individuals in new lifetime best times. Rebecca Jenkins followed Joe’s success by also claiming the 100m back and finishing 3^rd in the 50m back both in new lifetime best times.

Simon Churchman produced a fine performance in the men’s 200m free by knocking nearly three seconds of his best previous time by finishing in 2^nd place in a time of 1:52.95. Hazel Colbourne also dropped many seconds of her best time to also finish second in the women’s 200m free.

Jessica Ford(breast) Ralph Anstis(fly), Emma Gardner(breast), Hannah Allen(fly), Rachel Bowen(free) also swam very swift times in their respective events to help the team to a winning position at the end of the meet.

The final positions were:

1^st Loughborough

2^nd Edinburgh

3^rd Birmingham