Haslemere, England: Two of Great Britain’s most iconic swimming figures had their British Junior short course records taken at the Haslemere Open as Plymouth College’s Sam Straughan set about two of the former marks held by Liam Tancock and Mark Foster.
On day one of the meet, Straughan was to take the British Junior 50m Backstroke record down to 26.11, formerly Tancock’s 26.22 set in Sheffield back in 2000. On the second day of the meet, Foster’s 50m Butterfly twenty two-year standing of 25.48 set in Bonn in 1986 was clipped by the young Plymouth star to 25.47.
Straughan is part of the highly-acclaimed Plymouth Leander/Plymouth College swimming scholarship programme, recently plauded by Chris Martin, British Swimming’s Development Coach for having “perhaps the best set up in the UK for developing such swimmers”. Now in his second year in the scheme, the 15 year old GCSE student is showing great promise in a number of areas, having lowered the long course British Age Group records for 200m and 400m IM earlier in the year.
Jon Rudd, Director of Swimming at Plymouth College said “It’s really uplifting when you have athletes who take records from such luminaries as Mark and Liam, even though they are not Olympic events. He’s in good company on that record sheet and the fact that he has also set British records in long course middle distance IMs means that no-one will be pigeon-holding him too early, and that’s just how we would want it”.
Aspiring National and International swimmers interested in secondary school education and swimming scholarships with the UK’s leading swimming academy should contact the Director of Swimming on 0044 1752 203243
