Swimmers drink more than just pool water at BUCS

After a reshuffled schedule, the boys kicked the BUCS 2012 short course championships off with 50m free on Friday evening. Michael earned himself first of many fines by closely losing out to Fraser by .04 seconds. Similarly in this event Niki finished in 27s with compliments from Brad “Niki, your technique was held perfectly throughout the race, well done mate!”. (In an Australian accent...)

The girls got off to a good start with Catherine breaking the IC 50m free record to then beat her own time again in the first leg of the girls relay final in a time of 27.71, giving her a fine to give out (unfortunately to myself…). More success on Friday evening was brought by Caterina qualifying for the 50 backstroke semi final, to then swim even faster in a time of 30.91 to get our first BUCS point (and IC record) by qualifying for the final finishing in 8th place.

After an unwelcome 7am wake up Fraser managed to smash out a 55.06 in 100 free with Niki and Michael closely following in low 57’s! Catherine also closely followed the boys with a 60 second 100 free making a new IC record, followed again very closely by Zelie in 1.03. Also, for this event, Hayley earned herself her first fine with a wrong entry time for Meric (sorry!)

Matt Jackson, though feeling unwell managed to pull a 1.07 out of the bag for the 100m backstroke. Also in this event, Fraser reveals himself as not only a freestyle swimmer by finishing in a 1.04 for 100m backstroke.

Caterina narrowly missed out on a 200m final qualification. Great effort was put in by Meriç and Hayley for this event however, setting some good times to start this year off. Morris Po set a new IC record in a time of 2.15 for the 200 IM.

To quote Morris Po before his 200 breastroke swim: ‘I don’t want to swim this event because I don’t want to upset Florian by beating his record’, which Brad didn’t think was a viable excuse to drop out. Bad news for Florian then, as his record was swiftly broken by Morris in a time of 2.31s. Morris and Caterina continued to shine with their performances in the 200 backstroke event – Caterina qualifying for the final and Morris setting a new IC record in a time of 2.13.

Scott, whilst modelling the tight blue speedos, put out a great performance in both breastroke events, only narrowly missing out on breaking (his own) IC records.

Michael Ingram swam the dreaded 100 fly on Sunday morning whilst the majority of the team stayed in bed/had a cooked breakfast and Catherine similarly battled out in the 200m free setting a new IC record of 2.17.

The relays were all swam at times veryclose to IC records with all 4 boys (Fraser, Scott, Niki and Michael) swimming 25’s in the 4*50m free relay and the girls (Catherine, Hayley, Zelie and Caterina) qualifying for the final on Sunday evening. Morris Po set a new 50m backstroke record in the first leg of the boys medley relay in a time of 29.64. The girls ended the competition by finishing in 5th place in the freestyle relay after qualifying in 10th place.

There was not one disappointing swim all weekend, with everyone performing better than expected after only 5 weeks into training.

The Freshers (and Scott) were all rewarded (they might say punished…) on Sunday evening with a large number of shots and pennied pints consumed. Special mention goes to Fraser for finishing all his fines after chundering only 12 hours earlier from the night before at Sheffield Union. Additionally, Scott (after a struggle) managed to finish his larger number of fines (not sure how he managed to get so many...) and just managed to save the queen before heading home.

Overall, a successful and fun weekend to hopefully be topped by the long course meet in February. Well done guys!