“A happy swimmer is a quick swimmer” – University of Bath athletes enjoy record-breaking National Winter Short Course Champs
Sporting scholar Matthew Ward hailed the “good vibe” at the University of Bath after swimmers won 17 medals, seven of them gold, and set five new records at the National Winter Short Course Championships in England and Scotland.
Engineering student Ward secured four of those national record times as he completed a clean sweep of backstroke titles at the Scottish Championships in Edinburgh, clocking 23.60 in the 50m, 51.08 in the 100m and 1:50.37 in the 200m.
The Bill Whiteley Scholar admitted after the latter race that he had been inspired by watching Aquatics GB Bath Performance Centre training partner Cam Brooker smash the British short-course record in the same event at the Swim England Championships in Sheffield.
Brooker touched the wall in 1:48.36, while US Foundation Scholar Jack Skerry – fresh from representing Aquatics GB at the European Short-Course Championships in Poland – took bronze in 1:51.92. Those positions were repeated in the 100m backstroke final, Brooker winning in 49.82 and Skerry placing third in 50.44.
Ward told Scottish Swimming: “I saw my teammates from Bath just tear it up at the English Winter Meet and that really inspired me, everybody crushed it. Bath is such a great place to be. We’ve got such a good vibe there and we just enjoy it. We work so hard and it’s a very positive place to train and a great programme to be part of. The training is a huge factor but you know what they say, a happy swimmer is a quick swimmer.”
Mechanical Engineering student Brooker, who is supported by an Ivor Powell Scholarship, added silver medals in the 50m backstroke (23.16), 200m freestyle (1:43.29) and 100m freestyle (47.01), the latter coming in a thrilling final where just four-hundredths of a second separated the top three.
Another double gold-medallist at the English Nationals was Joshua Gammon, who won the 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly titles in 22.19 and 49.49 respectively before securing 200m butterfly silver in 1:51.17. Bath Performance Centre team-mate Jacob Peters won 50m silver (22.42) and 100m bronze (50.09).
There were silver medals for University of Bath Student Performance Sport Swimming Club duo Christian Ryan and Niamh Ward, who were runners-up in the 200m breaststroke (2:08.02) and 200m backstroke (2:06.80) respectively.
They were among 23 swimmers from the student swimming club who competed at the Swim England Championships, with the squad recording an impressive 58 personal bests as they reached 44 finals in total.
Matthew Ward’s fourth win at the Scottish Nationals came in the 4x50m medley relay exhibition event where he, Rafe Dobson, Brogan Hyde and Jamie Robertson set a new Scottish record of 1:36.31.
Student swimmers are also competing at the Swim Wales Winter Championships, Portuguese Nationals and Dutch Short Course Championships over the coming days.
Visit teambath.com/swimming to find out more about the swimming programme at the University of Bath and click here to see the daily swimfit timetable when members of the public can swim in the 50m pool.
Pictured top: Sporting scholars (from left) Jack Skerry, Matthew Ward and Cam Brooker won 10 medals and set five records between them.
