A stunning first season for UoB Swim Club
It has been a fantastic first term for our Swim club, with an incredible 145 personal best swims achieved, club records broken, and medals secured across a number of competitions.
West Midlands Championships
In October, our club entered a record 66 swimmers in the meet, with an increase from 40 in the previous year.
We came away with 19 Gold, 14 Silver and 18 Bronze medals, with 82 personal bests achieved, alongside 35 swimmers achieving the Winter National qualifying times.
BUCS Short Course Championships
We saw a great team performance at the BUCS Short Course Championships, with our Men’s team gaining 10 Gala points over Edinburgh, and fell just 19 points behind fourth placed Swansea. With our Women’s team placing seventh, this put Birmingham in an impressive sixth place overall.
It was Gold for scholar Ollie Morgan in the 100m Backstroke, breaking a University record time of 50.95. Morgan then went on medal in both the 100m Freestyle and 200m Backstroke, securing two stunning silvers. He has since been selected for and competed at the World Short Course Championships in Budapest in December where he placed 17th in Backstroke and 9th in the Mixed Medley Relay.
National Winter Championships
Our club closed out the Short Course season with a bang at the Winter Nationals in December, securing 24 PBs, four records and 18 swimmers reaching the finals. This year we represented the highest number of qualifiers for the meet, with 36 swimmers competing.
Sam Neeld secured a bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke and broke the club record, also placing fourth in the 100m Breaststroke, securing a further PB and club record.
Head Swimming Coach Gary Humpage reflects on the club’s success so far:
‘The results in Term One reflect the commitment to training that the team had shown through the term, consistently working hard to make the improvements from competition to competition.
The team support each other tremendously well in competition, together there’s a real thirst within the team to be faster each meet, competing at the highest levels in British swimming.’
