In an action packed afternoon of swimming that saw 24 teams compete across three divisions it was Loughborough University who finished on top of the championship, 65 points clear of second place Birmingham.
Loughborough produced a near perfect display of swimming as they finished in first place in every event bar one.
With team members such as Joe Roebuck fresh from the British Championships, Loughborough were always one of the favorites to take the title and they didn’t disappoint.
The event started with 4 x 50m medley teams where Loughborough stamped their marked for the competition.
Both Men’s and Women’s teams finished in comfortable 1st place position, with the women holding a strong five second lead over second placed Birmingham.
These results set a precedent for the remaining 11 events in which Loughborough asserted their strength and took maximum points in all but one.
Loughborough’s only demise came in an exceptionally close Women’s 50m Breaststroke where Edinburgh took top spot in 33.12, Cambridge came in second with 33.53 and Loughborough took 3rd in 33.12
With Loughborough’s complete domination of events the attention then turned to who would fill the remaining podium places.
The University of Birmingham, the University of Bath and last year’s winners the University of Edinburgh all remained in the mix for these medals although it was Birmingham who eventually came through to take the silver medal ahead of Bath.
It was a well deserved result for Birmingham who, with a second team in the Trophy division boosting their numbers, provided the best team support through the afternoon.
Whilst the championship division made for the headline event some serious swimming could also be found in the trophy and shield competitions. Birmingham showed strength in depth as their second team took gold in the trophy event.
They finished with 172 points ahead of Leeds Met Carnegie (153) and London Met (151).
The trophy competition remained a closer fought battle than the championship with no one team dominating like Loughborough did.
In fact it was the second placed Leeds Met that took the most wins with eight top finishes whilst London took six yet Birmingham only managed three. However Birmingham remained consistent throughout the events with an overall greater number of podium finishes (18/24) to see them into first place.
Finally the shield event saw a win for Cardiff just six points ahead of Glasgow with York finishing third. The event saw a far greater dispersal of total points with teams such as UWE and Hull unable to field a swimmer in every event although despite this the standard shown was still high across the events and no doubt has provided an excellent experience for all involved.
