The 2011 BUCS Short Course Swimming Championships began with 2012 Paralympic hopeful, and now double world record holder, Emma Hollis setting the tone for an incredible three days of competition that saw no fewer than 10 records smashed and Loughborough once again come out on top.

Loughborough’s strong squad were left celebrating individual and team success finishing on 370 points. Melanie Nocher who was awarded female swimmer of the championships, had a particularly successful weekend collecting three gold medals and setting two new BUCS records in the process. 

Equally pleased will be Team Bath who improved on last year to finish as overall runners up (285 points). Representing Bath Jessica Dickons, gold medal winner at the 2011 World University Games, won the 200m Butterfly event and teammate Michael Jamieson dominated the 200m breaststroke setting a BUCS record of 2:07.04 to secure gold.

The top three was made up by Swansea (189 points) who’s team performed impressively to secure third place from 44 universities taking part. A fantastic achievement considering how strong the competition was this year. It shouldn’t be forgotten that many universities & individuals away from the medals and records, including Newcastle and Staffordshire, were celebrating after very successful performances.

The Champs got off to an incredible start on Friday when Emma Hollis (Loughborough University) smashed the previous world record in the S8 category 800m freestyle by more than 30seconds, setting a new World Record time of 10:55.33. One world record may have been enough for some but 2012 Paralympics hopeful Emma, who won 5 medals at the recent IPC European Championships in Berlin, was not done there. Less than 24 hours later Emma swam her way to another world record, this time finishing the SM8 category 400m Individual Medley in 6:10.57.

Congratulations to Emma and all our other BUCS record breakers:

Jessica Dickons (Bath) 200m Butterfly (2:07.42)

Kate Hutchinson (Loughborough) 200m Breaststroke (2:26.51)

Michael Jamieson (Bath) 200m Breaststroke (2:07.04)

Rachel Lefley (Loughborough) 100m Backstroke 0:59.11

Melanie Nocher (Loughborough) 200m Freestyle (1:57.29) & 200m Backstroke (2:05.63)

Emma Smithurst (Swansea) 200m IM (2:10.97) 400 IM (4:37.93)

For a full list of result click here and for all the photo's from this weekend click here.