Wembley not the only success for Swansea!

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Swansea University’s swimming team returned to their home town from Sheffield this week with their biggest swimming medal haul ever.

The team’s brilliant success now means that Swansea University secured its best ever Long Course Team score and position!  Swansea are now second overall in the table with the Top Female award going to Olympian Georgia Davies.

The weekend started off with a Silver and a Bronze medal for Chris Suggitt and Megan Gilchrist in their respective 1500m and 800m distance events.

At the close of play on the first day Swansea actually finished ahead of the rest of the pack including Loughborough and Bath.

Day 2 also produced some excellent racing by Swansea including the first Gold medal of the meet which went to Alice Tennant (2nd Year Law) in the 400IM. Alice will look to build on this later in the year both domestically and internationally when she competes at the US Open.

Georgia Davies also struck Gold on Day 2 in the women's 50m Backstroke with a BUCS record. Georgia's swim was backed up by some other excellent unrested swims from Alys Thomas in the 100m Fly and Libby Mitchell in the 200 freestyle. On the boys side the first medal on Day 2 went to Freshman Adam Rowe for the 200 freestyle. Adam had a great second half to his swim having turned 10th at 50m.

Emma Smithurst, in what was her swan song meet, rounded off her swimming career with Silver in the Women’s 200m Backstroke. Emma will now focus on her studies and life after swimming. We wish her all the best for the future.

The first team medal was picked up by the girls 4x100 freestyle team who snapped up Silver behind Loughborough.

At the close of play on Day 2 Swansea had held off the challenge of fellow ITC universities Bath and Stirling to hold a strong second overall.

Day 3 saw Swansea swimmers go from strength to strength with more individual and team medals. Paralympian Gemma Almond picked up the first of her two medals in the presentation for her swim in the MC 100 butterfly where she won Silver. Gemma added to this with Gold in the 50m equivalent.

Also standing on the rostrum on Day 3, after some excellent swims, were Alys Thomas and Libby Mitchell taking Silver and Bronze respectively in the 200m Butterfly. 3rd Year Sports Science student Adam Mallett missed Gold by the narrowest of margins to bring home Silver in the Men’s 200 fly.

Alice Tennant picked up her 2nd medal of the meet with a Silver this time in the 200 Individual Medley. Alice has shown good form this weekend after a very heavy block of training. Chris Suggitt staved off a strong finish from Loughborough's Adam Harrington to secure another Bronze in the 200IM.

The last remaining medal went again to the girls relay quartet of Davies, Kiritschenko, Thomas & Mitchell who picked up Silver in the 4x100 medley relay in a time that will be tough to break in the years to come by any Swansea Quartet.

Stuart McNarry, High Performance Coach, Swim Wales said: “This has been the most successful meet since the inception of the links with Swim Wales and British Swimming by the University and stands the programmes in good stead for an excellent summer of competition both domestically and Internationally.”

The final team scores are as follows:

1st Loughborough 393

2nd Swansea 268

3rd Stirling 233

4th Edinburgh 197

5th Bath 156

Other Welsh University Team standings:

13th Cardiff 42

6th Glamorgan 15

28th Cardiff Met. 12