BUCS Championships: Swimming

A group of the swimming club’s best swimmers attended the prestigious and competitive BUCS Long course championships from the 10-12th February, where they produced one of the best results in the university’s history.

Becki Warner performed brilliantly making the final for her outstanding 50m Butterfly, and swimming fantastically in the final only 0.09 seconds off a medal position. Becki will be leaving us at the end of this year and the club would like to thank her for her superb contribution; she has made a final at every BUCS and meddled in the past during her time here. As one of the best athletes at this university, and one of the best swimmers, if not the best female swimmer, this university has ever seen, this is a fantastic achievement, and she will be sadly missed.

Ilya Skliarov, Squad Captain, made the excellent total of all three finals in the 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly.

Dave Chesterman, Club President said, “Ilya's hard work had paid off and has swum very well; no one has ever made all 3 finals before". Ilya was a massive asset to his squad over the weekend in Sheffield.

Adele Marsullo performed well in the 100 fly, but then was asked if she would step in for women’s medley relay to swim another 100m fly in 20 minutes. Adele stepped up and showed real attitude swimming hard start to finish and posting a faster time than her individual.

With that team spirit the women performed brilliantly in the 4x100m medley relay consisting of Ellie Straughan (Backstroke), Emily Curtis (Breaststroke), Adele Marsullo (Butterfly) and Kim Paginton (Freestyle) also impressively making it to the finals, gaining the university valuable points. Rachel Laurence, Women’s Captain, swam excellently in the 400m Freestyle, the Squad Captain commented that it was a “magnificent” swim.

Representing the men’s team in the 50m Fly, Parco Lau, almost made it to the final coming 18th out of 84 competitors with an excellent pb of 27.01.

Ryan Collier performed a world class backstroke to breaststroke tumble turn shaving valuable time of his 200 IM; it is visible how the team has really benefitted under the instruction of the club’s new head coach Malcolm Black.

Other great swims came from Dave Chesterman, Christine Howie, Sarah Crisp, Daniel Crawford and Sydney Robertson. Well done everyone who participated the results were truly incredible with the points from the finals placing the university 26/70 in the country for university swimming, up 12 places from last year and setting a new standard for swimming at Exeter.