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The second blog for The Yorker from the University of York Riding Club
The event, held from November 11-13 at Pond's Forge in Sheffield, started well for the club as two records were broken in one event when the men’s front crawl relay team clocked a new club record of 1.41.10 minutes, with Toby Wong leading off in 24.4 seconds to break the 50 metre front crawl record.
In the women’s 200m front crawl, Louise Highton got the second fastest time of 2.20.67 minutes and also just missed out on a club record in the 100m freestyle with a time of 1.01.43 minutes.
York’s swimmers smashed records across the categories, with Alice Cary breaking her previous 100m butterfly record with a new time of 1.07.10 minutes. In the same event Jon Beardsley and Michael Tansini recorded new fastest times of 1.06.36 minutes and 1.02.10 minutes respectively and in 100m backstroke Elliot Thurland just touched out Jacob Shaw with a time of 1.06.05 minutes.
Beardsley also claimed a personal best time in 50m freestyle and was narrowly beaten by Tansini in the men’s 50m butterfly, with Tansini setting a new club record of 27.21 seconds. Tansini also swam the 200m individual medley in 2.22.47 minutes to claim his second record of the weekend.
Tansini said: “At BUCS it's totally manic; there's well over a thousand swimmers there and just getting to warm up can be difficult! However, it's a fantastic opportunity to race against and with some of the best swimmers in the country, regardless of your current ability level.
“The best thing about this weekend was UYSWC's friendly and welcoming atmosphere, whether this was your first university gala or you had been doing them for years.”
The weekend was rounded off with success in the relays as York’s women’s medley relay team set a club record of 2.13.79 minutes and the men missed out on setting a new record by a few milliseconds. All the relay teams beat their Lancaster counterparts, which will encourage the squad when Roses comes around next year.
Men’s captain Chris Unsworth, who achieved a personal best in 200m breaststroke, said: “These results are fantastic, especially considering the impressive year we had last year. Breaking personal bests and club records and especially beating Lancaster is always a positive sign!”
Women’s captain Kim Briscoe added: “every single swimmer performed well, with some really encouraging performances.”
Club president Cesca Baguley revealed her delight at the club’s success and her hopes that it will continue throughout the year.
“The weekend went really well and these results are really very impressive,” she said. “This is extremely promising for the coming year with the prospect of BUCS teams, Roses and Varsity. Each year the club is getting stronger and stronger and everyone is stepping it up a gear, which sets the rest of this year up to be a really exciting one!”
The UYSWC BUCS teams are next is action in two weeks’ time and The Yorker will have full coverage of their results!
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