Over the weekend of 16th-18th February Durham University's swimmers once again travelled to Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield to compete in their second major BUSA competition of the year, writes Erin Pearson.
This was the long course championship, same events as last time but swum in a 50m pool. Although this might not seem a lot different to many people, swimming long course is a skill and we were therefore immediately at a disadvantage against teams like Bath, Loughborough, Manchester and Edinburgh who all have long course facilities locally. However, this did not deter the Durham swimmers swum there way into several finals shattering club records as they went!
As usual the Friday evening began with the distance events and the relay qualification. After disappointment in the relays at the short course championships we were off to a much better start with the boys making the B final and the girls team of, Vicky Beany, Jo Sherwood, Marie-France Falzon and Louise Griffiths, swimming their way into the A final where they went on to finish 8th, just two tenths off the club record.
These girls became quite familiar with making finals as the weekend went on. Jo Sherwood got Durham off to an excellent start in the first event of the morning on Saturday, the 200m freestyle. She made it through to the final eventually finishing a very respectable 8th.
Once again it was the womens breast stroke where Durham excelled but it can't all be accredited to a certain Miss Beany as has been common in the past. This time there were two Durham girls flying the flag in the 50m final as fresher Louise Griffiths made the lined up alongside Vicky Beany. Both girls swam really well with Louise finishing 8th in a new long course personal best and Beany 5th against some tough competition. Durham were close to repeating this in the 200m breaststroke final as Heather McKay just missed out. Beany went on to finish 4th in that event and 7th in the 100m, but it's good to know Durhams breast stroking will still be in safe hands with Heather and Louise when Beany leaves in the Summer!
Jo, Marie and Beany joined forces with Helen Mason when it came to the girls medley relay sailing through into the B Final. Despite being poorly all weekend Helen managed to shatter the 100m Backstroke record that had stood since 2003. She lowered the time to 1:14.57 but unfortunately was not quite fast enough for the girls to win. They just missed out in a nail-biting finish but managed to take another half a second off the medley relay record.
However, the boys were not to be outdone, and gained their first individual points in many years as third year Tom Kirk finished 10th in the 400m Individual Medley, despite having never swum it before. Perhaps after 3 years TK has in fact discovered his best event (although maybe a bit too late!) However, he didn’t stop there, breaking his own personal best and club record in the 100m backstroke on the way to helping the boys "dominate, dispatch and ruin" the other teams in the B final of the Medley relay.
Marc Hansen set a personal best in his 100m freestyle of 55.37 and narrowly missed out on the 200m final, with a time that was only 1 tenth outside of the record that has stood since 2004. Although he had a bit of trouble adjusting to student life everyone is very excited to see Mark back on form. Timmy Price was also on fine form with a new 200m fly personal best, an event that isn't even his first stroke.
Records continued to crash down all weekend with Louise, Helen and James 'Tank' Murray each taking two a piece. Louise took a whopping 9 seconds off the girls 200m IM record and added to that the 400m IM record, the first girl brave enough to attempt such a gruelling event! Helen added the 50m Butterfly to her 100m backstroke record and Tank dominated the fly records for the men. Despite only doing a 1 year masters here in Durham, Tank has made quite an impact on the record books. Firstly he broke both the 50m fly record during the 100m event. He set an impressive 100m time of 1:01.63 and then went on to lower his own 50m record to 26.98 during the individual event. How long will it be before someone can challenge them?
A brilliant weekend was had by all and Durham will be sad to see a lot of its swimmers leave in the summer. Good Luck goes to Jo Sherwood, Vicky Beany, Erin Pearson, Marie-Fance Falzon, Alex Orgee, Tom Kirk, James Murray and ex-Captins Nick Savage and Jon Reilly!
