BUCS SC

December 11, 2018Leave a comment

On Friday 9th November, we began the journey up North to race at BUCS Short-Course. With a variable amount of training under our respective belts and an optimistic amount of uni work in our bags, we were off… and here’s what happened:

• We started the competition off with a bang in the form of freestyle relays – representing the women’s team was Rebecca, Celia, Anna and Kate and representing the men’s team was Alvin, Justin, Dan and James – nothing like a good relay to get the team bonding going

• Alvin showed us what he could do by smashing the 50 back club record and qualifying for the B final! Followed by setting, yet another, club record in the 200 back, in a time of 2.14.95 – could this be a new rival for President Louis Seller??
• JJ following suit with another club record in the 50 breast and also making it into a B final! But he wasn’t done there, stepping it up in the final he went on to achieve a national time as a cheeky bonus!!

• Celia showing absolutely zero fear in taking on (and completing) the 400IM
• Emily may not have been at BUCS this year but George heroically took over the role of showing the freshers what happens you don’t train… setting an example for why you should really ‘start swimming more’
• A nail-biting swim off between JJ and a rival from Swansea in the 50fc had the crowd on the edge of their seats and JJ with a new pb of 23.46!
• We finished Saturday off in style with both a Men and Women’s 4x50m medley relay – with the Men’s team taking yet another club record #teamworkmakesthedreamwork
• Starting off bright and early on Sunday morning, Men’s captain Dan Schindler and new kid on the block (no pun intended) Celia Gaier braved the 200m fly and walked away (even if very slowly) as new club record holders!

• You might have thought you’d heard the last of ex-prez JJ but he’s back!! This time with another club record in the 100m breast with a 1.04.39 – not too shabby, eh?
• Leon then qualified for the team’s 3rd final of the weekend in his 50m fly – making a 25.13 look like eaaasy work
• Finally, last but DEFINITELY not least we had Goggy placing 4th in the final heat of the 400m free and earning 5th position overall! Not that anyone was surprised by this – you can always count on Goggy (even if she also swam at Arena League the night before :O)

So overall (I’m sure you’ve lost count by now) we broke a grand total of… *drumroll please* 10 CLUB RECORDS!! A fantastic weekend of swimming with some fantastic people – bring on BUCS LC!

Captain Dan Schindler competing in the 200m fly

London League 2018 – CHAMPIONS (again)

April 2, 2018April 2, 2018Leave a comment

Grim pool. Sunday. End of term. BUT WE STILL LIGHT UP LONDON LEAGUE BECAUSE WE CAN.

Smiling through the LONGEST EVER GALA (was it close to 3.5 hours?)

In the mistiest of 33 metre pools, lacking any T-marks, and with our block pointing towards pool side rather than our lane, UCL overcame all obstacles to hold on to our London League crown.

This was in spite of a great effort From LUST’s A * cough * alumni * cough * team…LUST’s A team.

Great swims came from most, with a few questionable swims later on in the evening (if you know, you know). Nevertheless, we managed to hold onto our London League crown over the three legs, with 146 points (10 points ahead of second place LUST’s A) in this leg, to successfully defend the title for the first time in UCL history! Another achievement to add to the long list oi oi!

First of all, this was also the last competition for Ellen!

ellen

After being Captain, Vice President, and then Social Sec, it’s fair to say that Ellen committed more than most to the club! Always up for a race, Ellen didn’t let a sore ankle get in the way of her racing this weekend.

We’re gonna miss you Ellen!

The UCL Swimming Club would also like to thank Kai for his services to the club.

kai2

This was Kai’s last London League, and he has not missed one in all his years at UCL. Timekeeping (and the donuts), as ever, Kai helped out once again, proving himself to be the legend that he is.

All the best Kai!

This marks the end of the 2017/18 season for the UCL Swimming Team, as the BUCS Teams events was unfortunately scheduled in the middle of exam season. Emily and Rob would like to thank all the swimmers for a top year, and good luck for your exams 🙂

2017/18 – you’ve been a great year

#bleedpurple

Your lovely captains,
Rob & Emily xx

AGM – Welcoming our New Committee!

March 22, 2018March 22, 2018Leave a comment

UCLSC Committee 18/19 – when ALL committee members are actually present for a photo

FRESH FACE ALERT!

Welcome to our newest committee! In this edition, we have MANY new faces, and some not so new ones, but hey we need members with experience right?

Our newest committee is made up of:

President: Louis Seller
Treasurer: Emily Gaizley
Vice President: Anatoliy Tiavlovsky
Men’s Captain: Daniel Schindler
Women’s Captain: Becca Lin
Fitness Captains: Harrison Vine, Marcel Schaack
Social Secretaries: Annie Flint Smith, Rob Brunton
Marketing Officer: Annalise Munro
Engagement and Communications (Welfare?) Officer: Tahlia Spink
Sponsorship and Alumni Officer: Yevgeniy Hildebrandt

For those who did not attend the AGM, know that the constitution has been amended and the club has voted to add a third fitness captain! If you’re interested in contributing to the club as a committee member, be sure to let us know when an EGM is announced at the start of the next academic year!

NOTABLE GOSS (for those who has fomo)

1. Annalise won swimming snake of the year. She is taking over this blog next year.
2. Kai has been the token drunk person everyone mentioned in their speech when it comes to how responsible they are when it comes to partying.
3. The treasurer candidates are convinced that we can get a Loop bar tab (no we can’t lol but heeyyyyy it’s worth a shot right?) [get the pun]
4. Kai has already drunk half his bottle of prosecco when the club was just done voting in our new president.
5. Ron Weasley was a strong contender.
6. JJ got the club 12 pizzas, including vegan ones. We are inclusive af.
7. Em broadcasted Frankie’s number. Frankie said he’s a fresher and will be in UCL for another 4 years. time to get that number.
8. The club split up between Roxy and Loop because we are united in spirit/our quest for spirits.

Signing out,
Kai xx

VARSITYYYYYY

March 11, 2018March 23, 2018Leave a comment

good game guys

VARSITY WINNERS 2018!!

#bleedpurple

Woo!

For the 4th consecutive year, UCL Swimming Team beat Kings to continue our unbeaten run in the competition! (What. A. Team.)

unbeaten. podium performance. number 1.

As it turned out, Kings proved to be no match for our full-strength team, who lit up the Olympic Pool, with coach Alex watching on.

Great swims came from everybody, especially from Dan, who swam the 200IM and 100 Back within the space of 10 minutes!

JJ, Becca, Annalise and Goggy also showed great stamina by swimming a billion races in under an hour, and still coming out on top in each one!

Also, fantastic racing from everyone else on the team, including, Ellen, Frankie, Wall, Abdul, Apostolos, Ita, Jessica, Emily, Robs B and H, George, Oda, Alan, Gabi, Jackie, Josh and Kate, to name a few.

Frankie catching Rob unawares (editor’s note: Rob is taking a selfie, he IS aware)

Louis also performed well, taking gold in all his events, despite enjoying a heavy evening the night before. Did you know that he actually swam at the Commonwealth Trials in 2014?

The team celebrated with a top evening in ULU! It turns out we can outswim and outdrink Kings. We do it all. Onto next year!

Out to Swim – Pride in Sport week

February 22, 2018March 14, 2018Leave a comment

UCL Swimming is committed to diversity and inclusivity.

In lieu of Pride in Sport week, take a look at an insightful article written by our Engagements and Communications Officer, Louis Seller (2nd Year, Medicine).

For Pride in Sport week, UCLSC decided to explore how best to make our club inclusive and welcoming to all. We turned to London and Brighton’s Out to Swim (OTS), an aquatics club for adults founded 25 years ago for primarily LGBT+ people (also welcoming to all adults with an interest in aquatic sport, including disabled swimmers), with the hope they could offer some insight into improving our club.

As Communications and Engagements Officer and LGBT+ rep, I took part in a swimming session with the team and had the opportunity to speak to the Men’s Captain, Andrew Benson, before the session began.

Andrew has been at the club for two years and regularly competes in Masters events with the club, these include ASA British Swimming Competitions as well international LGBT+ competitions. Out to Swim is one of the largest Masters swimming clubs in the UK, and is well represented at these competitions which is reflected in their results.

However, it’s not just the training and results that Andrew thinks is so important about the team, but rather the community that’s been created. Like many teams, members are incredibly supportive of each other and experience comradeship in and out of the pool. Being a swimmer and a member of the LGBT+ community creates a unique opportunity in which like-minded people can come together in an environment where they feel comfortable in a space in which they can be themselves.

Despite this, it hasn’t proven as easy for all members of the community to get involved; gender based changing rooms and costume restraints create limitations. This is an issued shared with UCLSC as we have little to no Trans and non-binary participation within the club. OTS, in collaboration with TAGS – Trans and gender non-conforming swimming group, now have a twice monthly swimming session at Swiss Cottage. The pool has its own private changing for members and OTS provide a coach to help develop swimmers style and technique. We are fortunate at UCL to also provide certain sessions that have non-gendered changing rooms. However, we both agree that there is more to do to increase participation, as there have been no swimmers making the step from their Trans and non-binary sessions to the general OTS sessions available.

On top of this, there are additional boundaries of gendered racing. OTS keep themselves up to date with ASA guidelines and regulations on this, but go one step further with their involvement in LGBT+ competitions. These competitions have less regulation and therefore cater more towards all people included in the LGBT+ spectrum, as well as holding separate races for non-binary swimmers. It’s been important to note the scope of which can be made available and how limited we are within our own swim team currently.

Lastly, Andrew expressed the importance in any sports team that it was everybody’s responsibility to call out discriminatory behaviour. Having someone who’s specifically available for discrimination to be reported to, in cases where it may be inappropriate or difficult to call out behaviour at the time of incidence, would make carrying this out easier. He thought the idea of having an LGBT+ rep to do this was a great step in the right direction.

It was great to meet Andrew and then experience a training session with the team and gave an insight into the importance of having these spaces and how they’re a benefit to the community. The session was hard work and good fun, with members managing to make me feel welcome in the limited time there was to talk during the rest. I hope to be able to train with them again in the future as I thoroughly enjoyed it – if you want to find out more about OTS then please visit their website https://www.outtoswim.org/. See also our other featured Pride in Sports week events.

BUCS Long Course: 16-18 Feb

February 19, 2018March 23, 2018Leave a comment

lol the photo composition isn’t the best but at least we’re not lying when we say it’s long course

Ponds Forge – the scene was set, and yes, as you would expect, UCL stepped up to the mark.

UCL swimmers embarked on an impressive Friday evening in the steel city, with Phyllida (Goggy) Britton almost breaking her own UCL record in the 800m freestyle. Yes, you read that correctly, 800. Oh, by the way, did we mention that she also did it with one lung? #Thisgirlalwayscan.

That was followed by a cracking 4×100 Freestyle Relay by the LADS – JJ, Frankie, Dan and Rob. Unfortunately, they missed out on the B final by 0.5. This would become a sorry feature of the trip.

Customary Wagamamas pic (We didn’t forget to take one inside…)

After a quick group shave on Friday night, we did indeed go on to smash Saturday, well guessed.

6 award-winning shaves, 1 shave/record.

An amazing 6 records were broken!

These came from:
1. Dan the man with a plan in the 50 Back,
2. Annalise the rower in the 50 Breast and 50 Free,
3. Rob the captain in the 200 Free, and
4. the LADS in the 4×100 Medley Relay (Dan, JJ, Rob and Frankie).

To our disgust, the boys’ medley team got touched out of a spot in the B final by just 0.35 of a second – Rob told reporters that this was the lowest he’d been since Gerrard’s slip.

5. However, Goggy re-galvanised our spirits with a storming 2.04.63 UCL record in the 200 free FINAL, to finish in 7th place!

With a cheeky nandos from Saturday night fuelling our athletic endeavours, Sunday was also a successful day for the team, with a further 4 UCL records tumbling. These came from: Goggy in the 400 Free, Rob in the 200 fly (with a 17 second drop-off, that’s what we call pacing yourself), Annalise in the 100 Free, and JJ in the 200IM. It was raining records! If you follow our twitter @UCLSwimClub (cue: follow us, locate us on the side bar), you will know that we have already made that pun.

Special mention must go to Wall, who produced a cracking 100 Breast, and Alan. Alan, ladies and gents, smashed the 400 Free after doing a few 50 sprints approximately 30 seconds before his race. He’s Alan, he does what he wants.

Overall, 10 records smashed, lots of fast swimming, many PBs, and 8 top lads.

Good job team.