Sporting scholar Leah Crisp ready to compete on world’s biggest sporting stage this summer after graduating from University

08 July 2024

Graduating from the University of Bath and making her Olympics debut – it is going to be quite the summer for sporting scholar Leah Crisp.

The marathon swimmer will attend Bath Abbey on Tuesday 16th July for her official graduation ceremony in Economics and Mathematics before returning to the University’s Sports Training Village to continue her final preparations for the Paris Games.

Crisp will contest the women’s 10km race on Thursday 8th August (6.30am BST), currently scheduled for the River Seine and taking in some of Paris’s most famous landmarks. It comes just over a year since she made the switch to open-water swimming and while she is still a relatively newcomer to the sport, she isn’t ruling out a podium place.

“I’m very excited, it has always been a dream of mine to go to the Olympics since I’ve been in the sport of swimming,” said Crisp, who is coached by Jamie Main at the Aquatics GB Bath Performance Centre. “I hope to mainly gain a lot of experience – the experience of it being your first Games, the atmosphere and what it’s like there.

“Obviously, everyone would love an Olympic medal and I like to think that in open water every race is different, so any race can be yours. I want to give it my absolute best shot and hope that race is mine.”

Crisp continues to do the vast bulk of her training in the London 2012 Legacy Pool at the Team Bath Sports Training Village, swimming around 80km per week over the course of 10 swim sessions to build up her muscular endurance.

Up until a month ago she was also fitting in her studies but Crisp, a Santander Sporting Scholar, says she has been well supported by the University as she pursues her dual careers.

“It definitely hasn’t been easy balancing both swimming and studying,” she said. “Obviously it’s quite an hours-intensive sport and then also Economics and Maths is not the easiest degree in the world that I picked!

“The University have been very helpful, very supportive. I’ve always been able to reach out to lecturers and check that everything I need might be available online while I’m away on trips and camps, or for any extensions I might need while traveling or anything. Everyone has been very supportive and very accommodating.”

David McNulty, Lead Coach of the Aquatics GB Bath Performance Centre, is full of admiration for Crisp’s achievements since switching to open-water, saying: “The physicality of open-water swimming is brutal and it takes a very special person to do that, both the training and the event.”

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