Following fantastic earlier successes in the year at both Short and Long-Course individual BUCS, where we placed a record 8th, came the week we’d all be training for. Welsh Varsity 2018 has been one of the swim teams’ most successful ever. With a change to the programme swimming this year took the primetime slot drawing in the biggest ever crowd of Green and red supporters we’ve seen to date. The Swansea crowd were in fine voice, creating an unforgettable atmosphere to bring Swansea the win for the 4th year running! Not only did we win but we well and truly drowned our competition with an emphatic 504-428 point win. Our Men’s team managed to win in almost every event, despite fantastic competition from the Cardiff girls, our Swansea Women also left them eating waves. Our 56 strong team swam like never before and were proud to be crowned champions once more.
Only a few days later we took a 38 strong team to Sheffield’s ponds Forge for the 2018 National Team BUCS championships. This is where uni’s from all over the country pitch their fastest swimmers in 3 ranked divisions in the be-all and end-all of British University swimming.
The weekend of racing was kicked off with our A team in the top Championship division swimming against the likes of Loughborough, Edinburgh, Stirling, Cardiff Met and the other top national swim teams. Despite plenty of PB’s and our highest points total to date, we narrowly missed out on a finals place by a matter of fingertip touches and ended the day in 6th.
Our B team also pulled off some fantastic swims, in the 2nd division where personal bests and and 1st place finishes left them in a very respectable 11th place. This is especially impressive in a division made up of mostly first teams. Even though our B-team did not make the finals, they gave the other teams a really good fight for their money.
Lastly, our C-team SMASHED IT!! Not only did they comfortably swim their way into finals but managed a brilliant 2nd place podium finish in their respective division, beaten only by Loughborough C. A lot of really good swimming from our C team this year.
Our swimmers have put in a lot of good work this year during practice and it has clearly paid off. Our swimming at Varsity and Team BUCS was the fastest to date and each and every competitor can hold their heads high. Like we do every year Swansea brought the noise, cheer and team spirit unrivalled by any other university, something that we take a huge amount of pride. Big thank you to our Captain this year Josh Philpott and our Vice-Captain Matthew Price for organising the events and whipping our swimmers into good shape!
by Grethe Tenden
