Edinburgh University's swimmers were straight back in action last week with the 2010 Scottish National Short Course Championships taking place at Tollcross in Glasgow.

After the banning of all hi-tech and textile suits, this was the first time swimmers could get to grips with having to swim in basic kneeskins and swimwear. With this meet also being right after the Christmas break, any PBs would be a fairly impressive challenge to overcome. 

Edinburgh had a reduced team present, due to a good chunk of the Performance team being away at their training camp on the Australian Gold Coast. That said, this small team, made up mostly of swimmers in the sprint team, still put in plenty of good performances that have come to be expected, and ended up finishing 5th overall.

The 50 freestyle was the first event on the programme, with plenty of UoE faces featuring. Dave Errington, Callum Shaw and James Kitching posted decent times, while Craig Meek made it into the A final, finishing in 7th with a time of 23.80. Fiona Booth picked up the first medal of the competition with a bronze in 100 breast, in a time of 1:11.36. The men's 200 back final featured four Edinburgh swimmers - Ross Wooley, Bruce McLintock, Kieran McGuckin and Callum Shaw. Ross, Bruce and Kieran finished in 6th, 7th and 5th respectively, but it was Callum Shaw who came out on top, with perhaps the best swim of the meet - finishing 3rd in an excellent 2:03.99. The men's 4x50m medley relay team wrapped up the day with a comfortable 2nd, not far behind City of Glasgow.

The next day also had no shortages of Edinburgh swimmers featuring in both A and B finals. Ross Wooley & Kieran McGuckin both made the 200 IM final, finishing 8th and 9th. Darren Ward began to strut his stuff with a silver medal in the 50 back, finishing in 26.16. Mark Jaggs, making his major backcrawl debut, finished 4th in the B final in 28.05. Fiona Booth stormed home to her second medal - this one being gold - in the 50 breast, with Eleanor Brooke finishing not far behind in 5th place. Craig Meek improved on his B final in 2009 by finishing 8th in the A final of the 100 free. The men's 4x50m freestyle A relay team kept their consistency on the go by taking another silver, with the B team coming in 7th. The girls 4x50 team came in 8th place.

The last day of the competition, normally a tough day in itself, still resulted in more excellent Edinburgh swimming. Wooley, who had spent the weekend swimming the longer and more gruelling races, topped it off by taking on the notoriously difficult 400 IM and finishing an impressive 5th overall iin 4:30.84. Fiona Booth took her 2nd gold medal in the 50 fly in a quick 27.90. In the men's equivalent Mark Jaggs also finished 5th, not quite breaking that golden 25 second barrier that has eluded him for some time. Darren Ward polished off the competition by stepping it up a gear to take Edinburgh's 3rd gold medal in the 100 back, bringing it home in 55.38 second.

With a total of 8 medals (3 gold), numerous finalists and fair good times, it was a successful weekend and a good start to 2010 for UoE. The performance team return from Australia in early February, and then the next week the students kick off the Long Course season with a trip to Sheffield for the next round of BUCS.