University of Bath swimmers past and present bag multitude of medals at National Winter Short-Course Champs
There were seven golds amongst a 20-medal haul for University of Bath-based swimmers past and present at the Swim England National Winter Short-Course Championships in Sheffield.
World and European Champion James Guy, coached by Jol Finck at the British Swimming National Centre Bath, set quick times as he topped the podium in both the 100m butterfly (50.66) and 200m butterfly (1:52.08).
Jessica Fullalove went under 58 seconds for the first time in a short-course 100m backstroke race as she won gold in 57.83, a great response to having to settle for silver the previous day in the 200m backstroke (2:06.17).
Sport & Exercise Science graduate Anna Hopkin, who is now studying and competing in the United States, made an impressive return home as she won triple gold in the 50m freestyle (23.70), 100m freestyle (52.00) and 50m butterfly (25.94).
Jay Lelliott – who, like Hopkin, is a former Ambassador for Team Bath sponsors MJ Church – was the fastest Brit in the 200m freestyle (1:45.62) to take gold ahead of fellow Sports Performance graduate Calum Jarvis (1:45.96).
Lelliott also won bronze in the 100m backstroke (51.90) and silver in the 400m freestyle (3:42.55), with Sport & Exercise Student Tom Derbyshire bagging bronze in the latter final in 3:43.95.
It was a second podium place for Derbyshire, supported by a British Swimming Scholarship, who was also third fastest in the 1,500m freestyle in 14:48.54.
Current MJ Church Ambassador Tom Dean, who studies Mechanical Engineering, won silver in the 100m freestyle (48.30) just ahead of National Centre Bath team-mate Jarvis (48.88) and also took bronze in the 200m individual medley (1:55.73).
Olympic medallist Siobhan-Marie O’Connor was second-fastest Brit in the women’s 200m IM (2:09.03), while Georgia Coates claimed 200m breaststroke silver (2:21.45) and 200m freestyle bronze (1:56.96).
Completing the medal collection was Natural Sciences student Jacob Greenow, coached by Mark Skimming and Andrei Vorontsov and supported by a Santander Sports Scholarship, who won 400m IM bronze (4:10.89).
There were also a host of personal bests set during the three-day meeting, with student-swimmers Kieran Bird, Jeffrey Chen, Luke Turley and Will Ryley among those setting new fastest times.
Meanwhile, Sport & Exercise Science student Filippos Iakovidis – supported by the Team Bath Dual Career programme – achieved his pre-tournament target by setting a new Cypriot 100m backstroke record of 55.87 at the World Short-Course Championships in Hangzhou, China.
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