Issue 154

Season high for swimmers

12th March 2007

Over the weekend of 16 to 18 of February, Swansea University attended the second of its BUSA competitions, the long course championship, at Ponds Forge in Sheffield. After their success in November at the short course championships, where the team finished a very impressive fifth behind Loughborough, Bath, Stirling and Manchester, a good result was expected by all.

With a team weekend plagued by both injury and illness, it would be very hard work to maintain the high standards set at the shortcourse championships. After the Friday evening events, the team stood a highly credible third overall.

Bethan Coole, the 2006 Swansea University sportswoman of the year, leading the way with a bronze medal in the 800 free. Both relay teams qualified for their respective A finals with ease, and a strong swim from Stefan Wuestner and Ryan Long completed the point scoring, Ryan gaining eighth place in the 800m freestyle and Stefan finishing seventh in the 1500m freestyle.

After a good night rest the team arrived at the pool full of confidence. Bethan Coole started as she left off, qualifying for the ladies 200m freestyle final where she would eventually finish fifth. Further finalists on Saturday were Andy Hodgson, male 200m freestyle (seventh) and male 200m back stroke (sixth), and Siân Boulton, female 100m butterfly (9th). Louise Henley gained Swansea's second medal, with a third in the female 200m breastroke, to follow up her earlier final of fourth in the female 50m breastroke.

In the afternoon's relay finals, the males finish a credible seventh in the freestyle relay, with the ladies finishing a brilliant sixth in the equivalent event. At the end of the day's competition, Swansea lay in fourth place and heading for another remarkable result.

Sunday started with the squad suffering more illness, most notably Andy Hodgson, who was forced to withdraw from his event due to a upset stomach. The illness failed to knock the confidence of the team, and resulted in an even bigger team effort to get the result they wanted.

Siân started the day well with a final in the female 200m butterfly (ninth), which was followed up by an eighth in the female 50m butterfly. Another high finish by Louise Henley, fourth in the female 100m breastroke helped keep the team score ticking along.

Ryan Long continued his great form, finishing eighth in both the male 200m individual medley and male 400m freestyle. Bethan Coole finished her weekend by gaining a second medal, this time in the ladies 400m freestyle (third).

The final events of the weekend were the medley relays. The men finished a close tenth in their final, a great effort considering the amount of illness with the team. The girls had qualified for the final second fastest, beating everyone except for Bath. The final was a very tense, with Bath and Loughborough clear in front, the battle for third position was between Manchester and Swansea. Unfortunately, Swansea was beaten at the death by just two seconds, but massive credit must go to the girls who put everything into the last race.

The final result of sixth for the weekend was much better than expected considering the number of swimmers missing through injury and illness. This result coupled with the result from the shortcourse championships shows that Swansea can no longer be considered an 'also ran' in terms of BUSA swimming.

They beat teams with much more established swimming programs than are in operation here in Swansea, and produced displays only rivalled by universities such as Loughborough, Bath and Manchester.

Alex Dallimore