City of Oxford Swimming Club joined 9 other teams from Cardiff, Derby, Millfield, Northampton, Guilford, Plymouth, Stockport, Wycombe and Hatfield at the National Arena Swimming League Final 2019 at Cardiff International Pool. This premier event in the swimming calendar decides the top ten clubs nationally and is the conclusion after three previous rounds in the corresponding district leagues, with Oxford taking part in the Southern League alongside Wycombe and Guilford.

This fast-paced event showed great team spirit and proved that our raging bull swimmers were up for the challenge and ready for serious fast racing in the 50m pool. Outstanding performances or steals as they’re known in the league occurred in the following events and helped the team finish 7^th overall with a point’s total of 257. The overall winners of the event were Plymouth and Leander with 361 points.

Steals:

• Girls 11 and under 4 x 50m freestyle relay (Pearl Sophastienphong, Zara Porter, Scarlett Shorter and Bella Green) were ranked 7^th and finished 4^th.
• Girls 13 and under 4 x 50m medley relay (Megan Peake, Ellen Bagley, Lilly Brabin and Mila Burovska) were ranked 8^th and finished 3^rd.
• Women’s open 4 x 50m medley relay (Emily Ford, Illizane Pinfold, Kate Mills and Safiya Sillah) were ranked 3^rd and finished 2^nd.
• Boys 13 and under 100m breaststroke, Oli Conway was ranked 9^th and finished 7^th.
• Women’s open 100m Fly, Kate Mills was ranked 4^th and finished 3^rd.
• Men’s open 100m Fly, Chris Motha was ranked 10^th and finished 9^th.
• Boys 13 and under 100m backstroke, Chris Skelton was ranked 9^th and finished 7^th.
• Girls 15 and under 100m Fly, Delphine Little was ranked 7^th and finished 6^th.
• Men’s open 100m backstroke, Dan Jenkins was ranked 4^th and finished 2^nd
• Girls 11 and under 100m breaststroke, Zofia Conway was ranked 10^th and finished 9^th
• Boys 11 and under 100m breaststroke, Jeffery Cheung was ranked 6^th and finished 1^st.
• Boys 13 and under 100m freestyle, Chris Skelton was ranked 8^th and finished 5^th.
• Men’s open 100m freestyle, Dan Jenkins was ranked 10^th and finished 9^th.
• Boys 11 and under 4 x 50m medley relay (Monty Salmon, Jeffery Cheung, Ted Bowling and Faaris Sharif) were ranked 7^th and finished 6^th.
• Boys 13 and under 4 x 50m freestyle relay (Andrew Taylor, Kayden Sillah, Lachlan Middleton and Chris Skelton) were ranked 9^th and finished 8^th.
• Boys 15 and under 4 x 50 medley relay (Nick Skelton, Billy Wotton, Geo Ratouly and Logan Bryan) were ranked 4^th and finished 2^nd.
• There was also a 1^st place position for David Murphy in the men’s open 100m breaststroke.

Missed the final, you can check out all the action in the following video.

Photo gallery from the National Arena Swimming League Final

Six young ragingbulls from the City of Oxford Swimming Club have been selected to take part in the Oxon & North Bucks Swimming Pathway Programme for 2019. The selection of Zofia Conway, Scarlett Shorter, Neretva Spengler, Monty Salmon, William Turner & Tristan Dennis (all born in 2008) comes from their recent performance and podium positions that these amazing swimmers achieved at the Oxon & North Bucks County Championships. The programme will run over the rest of 2019 and will see them taking part in three camps alongside a further 18 swimmers from various clubs in the two counties. The programme will help develop their understanding of strokes, strength and conditioning, nutrition etc and is based on the principles of the Swim England talent programme and has the aim of achieving a seamless development pathway within the sport.

Joining them also on the Pathway Programme will be City of Oxford Coach Fabian Whitbread, after recently being appointed as one of the skills coaches by Oxon and North Bucks Swimming. This appointment on the coaching team and selection of the swimmers continues to show the success that the club is having in not just developing swimmers but also the key coaching team for a successful future of the club.

City of Oxford Swimmer David Murphy has just signed up to a one-year sponsorship deal with Solo Sport Brands and arena UK at the National Arena Swimming League Final. The team at Solo Sport Brands have been monitoring his success over the last year and combining this success with his continuation on the British Swimming Medal Potential Programme for the 2020 Olympics. It was clear to all the coaches involved in selecting suitable swimmers, that David fitted the requirements of the sponsorship programme. David joins a host of other top-class swimmers including Adam Peaty and Alys Thomas that are currently sponsored by arena.

City of Oxford Swimming Club took 16 swimmers to the Swim England Winter Championships in Sheffield for three days of competitive swimming in this short course event that was also live streamed on the BBC website. As has been seen at the recent National Arena Swimming League, our Ragingbulls are on fire at the moment and 10 County or South East Regional Records (subject to ratification) were broken during the meet and we brought home 8 medals in total across the junior and senior age categories. Our strength in the breaststroke was shown throughout the finals where we had David Murphy in the 50, 100 and 200m finals and also Toby Mackay Champion and Connor Bryan in the 100 and 200m finals. Illizan Pinfold also dominated in the breaststroke and Nick Skelton continued with his success in the backstroke and individual medley events. Head Coach Amanda Booth and Michael Peacock (Strength & Conditioning Coach) returned from Sheffield with a sense of achievement and are excited to see how the squad of 16 swimmers will continue to develop during the rest of this season

Records (STR):

Illizane Pinfold (14 years) 100m breaststroke 1.10.89 Oxon & North Bucks Junior and Senior records.

Nick Skelton (15 years) 200m backstroke 1.58.78 Oxon & North Bucks Junior record.

Mimi Morely Iszatt (15 years) 50m backstroke          28.80 Oxon & North Bucks Junior record.

David Murphy  (20 years) 50m breaststroke 26.85 Oxon & North Bucks Senior & South East Regional Open records.

Safiya Sillah (15 years) 50m freestyle 26.34 Oxon & North Bucks Junior and Senior record.

David Murphy  100m breaststroke 58.19 Oxon & North Bucks Senior South East Regional Open records.

Nick Skelton 200m Individual Medley 2.05.15 Oxon & North Bucks & South East Regional junior records.

Illizane Pinfold 50m breaststroke 31.67 Oxon & North Bucks Senior and Junior & South East Junior records.

Nick Skelton 100m backstroke 55.71 15yrs Oxon & North Bucks Junior record.

Toby Mackay Champion (21 years) 100m breaststroke 2.10.40 Oxon & North Bucks senior record.

Medallists:

Nick Skelton 2^nd 200m Backstroke, Junior Champion 200m Individual Medley & 3^rd 50m Backstroke.

David Murphy 2nd 50m Breaststroke & 100m Breaststroke.

Mimi Morley Iszatt 3^rd 50m Backstroke.

Illizane Pinfold 2^nd 50m Breaststroke.

Toby Mackay Champion 3^rd 200m Breaststroke.

The 2018 / 2019 season has seen the City of Oxford Swimming Club entering two teams in the National Arena Swimming League South division. After two previous successful rounds, the A & B teams went into the final and 3rd round with the objective of getting Team A into either the A or B National Finals and promotion into Division 1 (South) West for Team B.

Team B went into the final round of the 2nd Division (South) West ranked as 4th and needed to finish no lower than third on the night and more importantly, ahead of the Guildford City C Team, who were ranked 3rd in the league after round 2. All swimmers representing COSC were on fire and were stealing positions on the rankings in nearly all of the 50 individual and relay events. Resulting in the promotion being sealed when the team finished 2nd (behind Bournemouth Swimming Club 1st and ahead of Guildford City C Team 4th and Harts Swimming Club 3rd) on the night and being placed 3rd overall in the league tables. The coaching staff are really pleased with how the team has developed other the three rounds and are proud to be moving up with Bournemouth and Harts Swimming Club to Division 1 (South) West for the 2019/2020 season.

Team A went into round 3 of the Premier Division South ranked as 3rd and had the aim of swimming as fast as they can to put them in a good position on the rankings for the virtual gala that would decide who would take part in the A or B National Finals in Cardiff. With this aim in sight and like the B Team, the A Team were on fire and swimming faster than they had in the previous 2 rounds. On the night three Swim South East Regional Records (subject to ratification) were broken.

1. Girls Junior 4x50m Free Relay City of Oxford 1:47.14 13-Oct-18 Oxford (Evie Mclean , Illizane Pinfold , Delphine Little , Safiyah Sillah ) beaten by 146.27, Evie Mclean, Illizane Pinfold, Delphine Little, Safiyah Sillah.

2. Girls Junior 4x50m Medley Relay (City of Oxford 1.58.94 10-Feb-18 Aylesbury (Mimi Morley Iszatt , Tash Fenton , Emily Ford , Evie Mclean )  beaten by 1.57.30, Mimi Morley Iszatt, Illizane Pinfold, Delphine Little, Evie Mclean.

3. Boys Junior 4x50m Free Relay City of Oxford 1.40.42 13-Oct-18 Oxford ( Nick Skelton , Billy Wotton , Mikki Petrovic , Geo Ratouly) beaten by 1.38.72, Nick Skelton, Billy Wotton, Chris Simms, Geo Ratouly.

With all these records being broken, City of Oxford held onto the 3rd place ranking in the Premier Division South and have guaranteed a position in the A Final of the National Arena Swimming League in Cardiff. We have everything to swim for on the 3rd March and we will be entering the final ranked 5th nationally and we are sure that head Coach Amanda Booth will pushing the team to achieve more.