2020 BUCS LONG COURSE SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 14th-16th, 2020
- Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield, England
- LCM (50m) Course
- Event Channel
- Live results
The 2020 British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Long Course Championships has concluded, with Loughborough taking home the overall team title with a head-turning 351 points.
Stirling did its best to keep pace, holding steady as runner-up with 263 points, barely ahead of the third-place team Edinburgh, who finished with 261.
Just as Stirling has historically chased Loughborough, Edinburgh is ever in pursuit of Stirling, finishing just 9 points behind the Scottish-based university last year and reducing that to a deficit of only 2 points this time around.
| Team | Place | Points |
| Loughborough | 1 | 351 |
| Stirling | 2 | 263 |
| Edinburgh | 3 | 261 |
| Bath | 4 | 182 |
| SheffieldHallam | 5 | 123 |
| Birmingham | 6 | 98 |
| Swansea | 7 | 80 |
| Surrey | 8 | 76 |
| ManchesterMetropolitan | 9 | 61 |
| Nottingham | 9 | 61 |
The bigger story is the fact that Stirling wound up on top of the men’s point pursuit, taking the trophy with 176 total points. Loughborough finished only 8 behind in 168, while Edinburgh was also in the top 3 with 111 points.
This marks Stirling’s first-ever men’s title, making it 32 years since Loughborough has lost the men’s title. This gives the combined Stirling squad some positive energy racing at this meet as they prepare to make a charge for a spot on the Olympic team.
After their monumental win, Stirling told SwimSwam, “Although BUCS is not a target event, but it does assist with our preparation as we firmly focus on our Olympic Trials.” The Trials are presented by the 2020 British Championships set for April.
“It’s a great feeler for where we’re at individually from a technical, tactical and physical perspective. We’ll review what we’ve seen and aim to learn quickly as we move into the meet next weekend in Bangor.” [McCullagh Memorial]
“The team aspect of BUCS is unique for us, and the swimmers enjoy competing for the University. It’s our first LC title for the men and we had some excellent swims from our females.
“Cassie Wild‘s top female performance for the 100m back was a big move forward for her, in addition to Kathleen [Dawson] in the morning puts them in a good place as we close into April.
“2nd overall is where we’re at; we try to accommodate both academic and full-time athletes, which has its challenges, but we see a massive benefit.”
Men’s Top 3 Teams:
Stirling 176
Loughborough 168
Edinburgh 111
Men’s gold medalists for Stirling over the course of the competition were as follows:
- Craig Benson – 50 breast, 100 breast
- Duncan Scott – 400 IM, 200 fly
- Calum Bain – 50 fly
- Men’s 4x100m free relay
- Men’s 4x100m medley relay
Women’s Top 3 Teams:
Loughborough 183
Edinburgh 150
Stirling 87
Women’s gold medalists for Loughborough over the course of the competition were as follows:
- Abbie Wood – 400 IM, 200 free, 200 IM
- Marie Wattel – 100 fly, 100 free, 50 fly
- Emily Crane – 50 free
- Women’s 4×100 free relay
- Mixed 4×100 medley relay
Wasnt sure where to report this, so figured a British article may be the best place. Harriet Rogers (2004) obliterated her LCM 50 free best this weekend – Dropping a 25.60 after a 25.86 in heats at county champs. Her previous best was 26.4 from last summer. She now sits just 0.06 behind Fran Halsall as the fastest ever British 15 year old.
Be interesting to see if Birmingham can leverage their new pool to break into that top 4 (Hallam probably limited by the club/uni partnership model seeming to have limited appeal compared to uni based teams).
I’m sure they have their own 50m pool. A swimmer from my old club went to uni there and did very well as a result. It takes a lot of time to break into the top 4 at this level and I’m glad to see others challenging Loughborough’s dominance at the top.