Unlike most university sports there are only two major BUSA competitions a year in swimming, both held in Sheffield, writes Erin Pearson.
This is not an easy ride with so much pressure to perform over these three days and some swimmers performing ten times in one weekend. Last weekend saw the first of these competitions, the short course event (swum in a 25m pool) and Durham sent a strong team of twenty-six swimmers, nine girls and fifteen boys to represent the University.
The events begin on the Friday evening with the distance events and relay heats. This was the first time the 800m had been open to men and it was Nick Savage, last year's Captain, who took a step down from his usual 1500m, to set DUSC's inaugural men's 800m record in a time of 10:43.89, finishing in 10th position and acquiring the team's first BUSA point after the first event! It was our previously featured 'Ironmen' who unsurprisingly represented Durham in the longest event of the weekend the 1500m. Tom Kirk just edged out Matt Seegelaar again but this wasn't surprising since Seegelaar swam an excellent relay leg just minutes before.
There was mixed success in the freestyle relays as the men just sneaked into the 'B' final, eventually finishing in 19th place. However, the girls despite setting a new University record by some margin just missed out, finishing in 21st place. This was a common theme for the weekend; despite brilliant individual and team performances, several personal bests and many club records we didn't achieve as many finals or top ten positions as in previous years. Yet it didn't help that Bath had added Zoe Baker, 30 year old previous 50m breast-stroke world record holder and Darren Mew, 28 year old World Championship silver medallist to their already internationally recognised team. Jo Sherwood astutely suggested that with the introduction of top-up fees there are many more sports scholarships available for high performance, keeping young swimmers in the sport and offering University places to swimmers who may not otherwise have considered going to University.
However, despite the higher standard, the dedicated Durham swimmers were on the poolside bright and early for a dynamic warm-up on Saturday morning while many of the other teams slept on poolside! More importantly the DUSC banner hung proudly above the pool and unlike previous years it was well protected all weekend. Great amusement was taken from watching other teams cut the ties to watch it only dangle from the lock!
The morning started off well with Jo Sherwood narrowly missing out on the 200m freestyle final, although a little disappointing as she had made it in previous years. New swimmer Helen Mason made quite an impact in the women's 50m backstroke surprising even herself with a massive four second personal best. This, along with two more impressive personal bests and a brilliantly supportive attitude to the rest of the team earned her the 'fresher of the meet' award, voted on by all the swimmers for anyone new to the club. In the last event of the morning session James Murray, who has come to Durham to do a Masters from Manchester University, showed us what he was made of by beating DUSCs 100m fly record and the 50m record on the way! Marie-France Falzon set another DUSC record in the evening as the only women fearless enough to attempt the 400m Individual Medley. She finished 14th in a time of 5:42.06.
Jon Reilly and Tom Kirk both set long awaited personal bests in the 100m Back, resulting in the latter being awarded male swimmer of the meet for DUSC later in the evening. In the medley relay teams it was a reverse in fortunes this time, with the men narrowly missing out on the 'B' final but the women finishing 15th overall with yet another club record.
So what of the legendary Vicky Beaney, who has brought us so many BUSA points over the last few years, you might ask! Well I though she deserved a paragraph to herself. Unfazed by the increase in standard Beaney began with an impressive 6th in the 50m breaststroke; her least favoured of the breaststroke events. She set a new personal best and again improved her own DUSC record in the event which was dominated by the two Bath internationals. In the 200m event she excelled once again over the longer distance and came home in a good third place. Finally on Sunday was the 100m event and, after scaring Zoe Baker into withdrawing, she finished 5th again bettering her own DUSC record. Unsurprisingly she was again voted best female by the rest of the team.
The following swimmers also performed well over the weekend setting pb's, which they were duly punished for with drinking fines at Tuesdays post-BUSA social!
Tim Price: 50m breaststroke; Jo Sherwood: 50m freestyle; Erin Pearson 100m back, Helen Mason 50m fly, 50m back and 100m back; Tom Williams 100m and 200m breast and Andy Matthews 50m and 100m breast.
It's pleasing to see that, despite our continued difficultly in finding a pool to train in, our standards are continuing to improve. Although it seems slightly unfair that the prestigious Male and Female BUSA champions were won by ageing internationals rather than students fighting to balance their studies and training. We must continue to train and just improve even more for Long course!
