Fourth-place glory for Edinburgh swimmers at BUCS

Edinburgh University’s top-tier swimmers stormed to a fourth-place finish earlier this month at the BUCS Short Course Championships in Sheffield. One of the biggest events in the university sport calendar, the championships saw Edinburgh beat Stirling ITC and finish only fractionally behind third-placed Swansea ITC after some thrilling late drama.

Women’s Captain Gayle Biggart called it was “the best result from a Scottish Short Course yet,” and the team were quick to credit coaches Chris Jones and Mark Jaggs for their hard work and dedication.  The competitive edge, rapid swims and numerous PBs for the University’s Performance swimmers means the future is bright with the Olympic trials still to come in March.

The long distance events got things underway, and Ishbel Rodgers pulled out all the stops in the 800m alongside Emma Bird. Gaining crucial points for the team in the 400m freestyle and 400m Individual Medley (IM), Rodgers also gained a PB time of 4:35.95 in that 400 freestyle.

For the men, Cameron Smith put tremendous effort into the long-distance freestyle events – the 1500m, 400m and 200m. Newcomer Jack Holroyd swam excellently in the 200m freestyle and 50m breaststroke and a great effort from another first-time BUCS competitor, Orion Young, saw him make finals in the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle – placing ninth and sixth respectively.

Highly impressive performances followed from Jenn Davis in the 200m butterfly (1:07.22), Nicholas Quinn and Scott Wilcox in the 200m breaststroke final (2:17.04 and 2:23.66 respectively) and James Thomson, who placed eighth in the 200m IM (2:05.55).

Kieran McGuckin kept the tempo up – firstly timing 56.99 in the 100m backstroke final, but going even better with 25.98 and a fifth place in the 50m backstroke final. McGuckin touched within 0.64 seconds of the Heriot-Watt contender, Craig McNally, who took first place, in what was an  extremely close race among the top five.

Edinburgh’s ladies were also making their mark across the spectrum. Sarah Eaglesham made finals comfortably in the 200m, 100m, and 50m freestyle events – placing third in the 200m freestyle final with a tremendous 2:00.89 swim.  Corrie Scott scored PBs in all her events and came out top in the 50m breaststroke final, with a time of 31.63.  That race featured an all-Scotland battle between the top three; Kathryn Johnstone of Heriot Watt coming in second and Edinburgh’s Andrea Strachan in third. Strachan also swam strongly in the 100m breaststroke to take fourth in the final.

Emma Bird just touched-out in the final of the 200m breaststroke, which was a close match right until the end; with a PB time of 2:26.57 Bird was just 0.06 seconds behind the Loughborough winner. Bird did, though, claim a well deserved victory in the 100m breaststroke final, and this was followed by Richard Shafers winning both the 100m and 50m freestyle finals in great style.

Some speedy times were also made in the relay events. In the 200m freestyle relay the Edinburgh women took second place, beating Bath by 0.06 seconds; whilst the men placed fourth, just 0.12 seconds away from third place. In the 200m Medley relay the men claimed third behind the sport powerhouses of Bath and Loughbourough. In a dramatic final twist, though, the Edinburgh ladies were disqualified from the 200m Medley relay, denying the team third place overall; a tiny dampener on a wholly positive and successful experience for the team.