A number of British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) swimming records fell over three days of exciting action at the 2019 BUCS Nationals, which took place from 15-17 February.
The event, held at the Ponds Forge International Sport Centre, was part of the broader multi-sport competition and was live streamed for the first time to mark 100 years of the BUCS National Championships.
Olympic champion Adam Peaty took to the water in the Men’s 50m Breaststroke and posted the fastest time in the world this year, stopping the clock at 26.74, showing he has enjoyed a solid block of training. Peaty was however unable to contest the medals as he is not a registered university student.
The eventual winner in that event was fellow National Centre Loughborough athlete and chemistry student James Wilby, who raced to a 27.45 in the final, fractionally outside his lifetime best. In fact it was quite the weekend for the Commonwealth champion, as he also broke the 200m breaststroke record, his winning time of 2:09.71 meaning he now holds every BUCS breaststroke record on offer.
There was a further Loughborough record in the Women’s 50m Breaststroke, as European silver medallist Imogen Clark claimed the gold, writing her 30.68 time into the BUCS record books.
Bath’s Tom Dean served up a big swim in the Men’s 200m Freestyle, as he nudged Duncan Scott out of the record books with a 1:47.38 swim to take home the title. The Bath University swimmer then followed that up with an impressive swim in the Men's 200m Individual Medley, he and Glasgow 2018 bronze medallist Max Litchfield went head-to-head in the final that saw Dean post a new BUCS record of 2:00.25 for the gold medal. Abbie Wood was first home in the women’s equivalent, a clear winner.
National Centre Bath swimmer Tom Derbyshire dominated in the Men’s 1500m Freestyle on the opening day of racing, completing 30 laps of the South Yorkshire pool more than 10 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, with 2017 World Championship bronze medallist over 5km, Tim Shuttleworth, claiming bronze on his return from injury.
Following on from her senior international long course debut at the 2018 European Championships, Stirling’s Cassie Wild topped the podium in the Women’s 50m Backstroke, whilst in the relays Wild’s University of Stirling teammates toppled the usual dominant force, Loughborough, to claim the 4x100m Freestyle and the 4x100m Medley titles, the latter the final gold medal of the weekend. Commonwealth and European champion Duncan Scott played a key role in both of those relay successes, as well as taking gold in the 200m Butterfly.
Loughborough University once again reigned supreme though, as at the end of the three days of swimming they topped the table with a grand total of 389 points, with the University of Stirling lying second and the University of Edinburgh completing the podium.
Click here to view all the results and the overall leader board from the 2019 BUCS National Swimming Championships.