BUCS Short Course 2021
At the end of 6th week, swimmers from the Blues and Dolphins teams travelled up to Sheffield for the return of BUCS Short Course on the weekend.
OUSC had an impressive weekend with 3 club records being broken, 7 finals, 10 Blues Times, 4 lucky winners of free Speedo Race Suits and Training Suits, and a heap of PBs; an exceptional achievement only 6 weeks into the season.
The successful weekend started off on Friday evening with the Women’s Freestyle Relay smashing the heats and securing a place in the B Final. The Mixed Medley Relay (Louisa Zolkiewski, Andrew Wilson, Andrew Hong and Spencer Williams) also swam brilliantly, missing the club record by 0.18 seconds and finishing 12th overall.
Saturday saw the individual races start, with Sophie Lawrence and Ellie Browne in the first race of the day, the 200 Free, and both finishing within 0.8 seconds of the Blues Time, a very promising position to be in at this point of the season.
Andrew Hong and Jonathan Rutter also swam in the 200 free both securing Blues Times and Jonathan progressing to the final in a record breaking swim for OUSC (1:49.39). Shortly after, showing no signs of tiredness, Andrew Hong swam another Blues Time in the 100 fly, in a personal best time of 55:04, finishing 11th and narrowly missing out on a lane in the final. Jonathan also qualified for his second final of the day swimming on his 200 breastroke in a time of 2:13.95.
Andrew Wilson was quick to follow suit, breaking the club record on the 50 breastroke in a time of 28.03, also securing a lane in the final.
The OUSC backstroke cohort was looking strong with both Luiza Farache-Trajano and David Pugh achieving personal bests in the 50 backstroke.
The afternoon session was topped off with a brilliant swim from the Women’s 4×50 Medley Relay, consisting of Charlotte O’Leary, Zoe Faure Beaulieu, Spencer Williams and Louisa Zolkiewski who finished 14th overall and qualified for the B Final.
The evening of finals was very exciting. Jonathan started the session with the 200 Freestyle, breaking his own record set in the heats, finishing in a time of 1:48.08 and coming 5th overall.
Next up was Andrew Wilson on the 50 breaststroke, again breaking his own record, and coming 5th, swimming a time of 27.50.
A quick turnaround and Jonathan was back in the water for the 200 breaststroke final. The quick succession of swims was no issue, as he showed no sign of tiredness, beating his time from the heats, narrowly missing out on a medal, finishing 4th overall in a time of 2:12.96.
The last race of the finals session was the Women’s 4×50 Freestyle Relay. The women (Charlotte O’Leary, Claudia Murray, Louisa Zolkiewski and Spencer Williams) swam their hearts out and also finished 4th, in a time of 1:50.11, shaving a few hundredths off their heat swim!
Day 3 started on a high. Andrew Hong’s 200 Fly saw him comfortably secure a place in the final, breaking the club record, achieving a personal best with a time of 2:03.19 and another blues time all in one.
Jonathan Rutter’s 100 breaststroke saw him swim straight into the final in a time of 1:02.26.
The 100 freestyle also had some fantastic swims. Cameron MacDonald, a key member of the dolphins team, swam under a minute for the first time ever. Andrew Hong swam yet another blues time, and Luiza Farache Trajano annihilated her heat and swam 39 seconds faster than her entry time!
The last session of a very long weekend had Andrew Hong in the 200 fly, Jonathan in the 100 breast and the women’s 4×50 Medley Relay final.
The whole team were there to support, and the session started with Andrew Hong showing no signs of tiredness from his busy weekend of swimming, absolutely smashing the 200 fly in a time of 2:01.48, taking 2 seconds off the club record in a huge personal best swim and finishing 6th overall.
Jonathan also showed no weakness from his huge weekend, beating his time in the heats with a 1:01.85 in his 100 breaststroke final.
The Women’s 4×50 Medley relay had Oxford up against Cambridge in the B final. The four Oxford girls swam phenomenally, finishing 5th in a time of 2:01.31, nearly 2 seconds ahead of the Cambridge Team.
It was a very busy weekend and everyone from OUSC showed great support for each other and the competition has really re-fuelled everyone’s commitment to the team and enthusiasm towards training. For the first proper meet in 18 months, there were a lot of excellent swims, many swimmers narrowly missing out on achieving Blues Times, and many learning points were taken away, ready to be implemented back at Iffley Road in the last few weeks of training. Congratulations to everyone who took part!
Up next for the Blues Team is the British University Swimming League Round 3 vs the University of Surrey! The Dolphins have no more fixtures this term but are training hard ready for Varsity on February 26th.
