Swimmers in command of the situation

Over the last two weekends, the IC swimming team have gone out and tested their credentials on a national level, proving themselves to be a formidable force.

Two weeks ago the swimming team took a small squad of swimmers to the BUCS south regional team event, taking on teams from all over southern England from Bath to Southampton and beyond. Both the girls and guys teams performed brilliantly, with special mention going to Hannah Collins and Jaime “ quiet man” Gonzalez, for fantastic displays in the 100m IM and 200m freestyle respectively. As the gala went on it was clear that Imperial were in the hunt to reach the BUCS final up in Loughborough, brushing aside competition from other universities to be in a promising position halfway through the afternoon.

More good swims followed the mid-gala interval, however the team narrowly missed out on a position in the final to the University of London swimming team. This was particularly galling given that IC had been told that they had reached the final, only for that to be taken away due to errors in calculating points.

The swim team soon brushed off this disappointment on their way up to Sheffield to compete in the BUCS Long course national championships.

It was clear from the first day of the gala that the team were in good nick, when the men’s freestyle relay team qualified for the B final, after which results only improved. Hayley Rigby narrowly missed out on a place in the 200m IM final, and had to settle for a reserve place. A new addition to the squad Chris Jones made an instant impact when he qualified easily for the final of the 50m breastroke narrowly edging Florian Brock out of the “situation”.

Both men’s and women’s medley relay teams then went on to qualifiy for their respective B finals, on a day which would be capped by Chris coming 5th in the 50m breastroke, and the men’s freestyle relay team of Chris, Niki Peric, Jaime Gonzalez and Thomas Whitehead-Clarke smashing their time from the previous day by 4 seconds to come 2nd in the B final, leaving them 12th in the country. The weekend was capped on the Sunday with Maria Graney narrowly missing out on the final for the 100m backstroke for reasons unknown, and a great performance from the girls’ medley team in their final, again improving on their time thanks to a tactical master-stroke from Alex Charleson.

All in all a fantastic 2 weeks of swimming, and a suitable farewell gift to the swimming club coach Sergio Catania who will be moving on after over 5 years with the club. His enthusiasm on poolside will be missed, but the club hope to build on the success that he has brought, and go from strength to strength in the coming years.