2025 BUCS SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Friday, November 14th – Sunday, November 16th
- Ponds Forge International Swimming Centre, Sheffield, England
- SCM (25m)
- Meet Central
- Day 1 Recap
- Results
- Livestream
Day 2 Highlights
Day two of the 2025 British Universities & Colleges (BUCS) Short Course Championships took place last night with multiple Olympians diving in for both individual titles and maximum points towards their team trophies.
We already saw 21-year-old Freya Colbert take home double gold on night one, winning both the women’s 200m free and 200m IM, and the Loughborough ace was back at it again.
Colbert topped the 400m IM event in stellar fashion, stopping the clock at 4:33.58.
That handily defeated the field, which included Stirling’s Suzie McNair earning silver in 4:38.66 and Loughborough teammate Lily Booker collecting bronze in 4:39.37.
Colbert slides into slot #10 among this season’s best performers worldwide.
2025-2026 SCM Women 400 IM
Walshe
4:22.97
| 2 | Mary-Sophie Harvey | CAN | 4:24.25 | 10/24 |
| 3 | Mio Narita | JPN | 4:26.43 | 10/24 |
| 4 | Abbie Wood | GBR | 4:27.15 | 10/11 |
| 5 | Justina KOZAN | POL | 4:28.58 | 12/07 |
| 6 | Ella Ramsay | AUS | 4:28.96 | 10/24 |
| 7 | Alba VAZQUEZ RUIZ | ESP | 4:29.57 | 12/07 |
| 8 | Amalie SMITH | GBR | 4:30.64 | 12/12 |
| 9 | Anna PIROVANO | ITA | 4:30.75 | 12/13 |
| 9 | Waka Kobori | JPN | 4:30.75 | 10/18 |
Versatile Colbert’s next victim was the 200m back, where she grabbed the gold in a solid performance of 2:03.64.
That represented the sole time of the field to clear the 2:04 barrier, with teammate Honey Osrin snagging the silver in 2:04.03 and Stirling’s Holly McGill bagging the bronze in 2:05.18.
Colbert’s outing checks in as a lifetime best, erasing her former career-swiftest performance of 2:04.78 put up in December of last year. She’s now Great Britain’s 6th-best 200m backstroker of all time.
24-year-old Archie Goodburn continued to be an inspiration, training and racing despite battling inoperable brain tumors.
The Edinburgh athlete already won the men’s 50m breaststroke on night one, but followed up with another top result in the 100m sprint.
Goodburn stopped the clock at 57.35 to beat the pack by over a second, establishing a shiny new PB in the process.
He hacked nearly half a second off his previous best-ever swim of 57.81 notched at last year’s Short Course World Championships.
Goodburn now ranks GBR’s 3rd-quickest performer in history.
Top 5 British Men’s SCM 100 Breaststroke Performers All-Time
- Adam Peaty – 55.41, 2020
- Ross Murdoch – 56.67, 2019
- Archie Goodburn – 57.35, 2025
- Michael Jamieson – 57.52, 2013
- James Wilby – 57.61, 2018
You can read more about Goodburn’s tumor battle here.
Additional Notes
- Veteran Max Litchfield got it done for gold in the men’s 400m IM, logging the sole time of the field under 4:10. He produced 4:06.28 ahead of George Smith who touched in 4:10.79 followed by David Annis‘ effort of 4:12.89. Litchfield’s personal best remains at the 4:00.18 nabbed in 2018.
- Fellow Olympian Angharad Evans posted a winning result of 1:04.68 in the women’s 100m breast. This doubled up on the 50m breast gold she captured on night one. Her time enters her into the 10th slot on the season’s rankings.
- 23-year-old Cam Brooker of Bath was a multi-event winner on day two, notching titles in both the 100m free and the 200m back. The former saw Brooker register 47.51 to beat runner-up Maddox Roberts by just .02. Then the 200m back saw him score 1:52.61, outside his lifetime best of 1:51.03 from the 2023 European Short Course Championships.
Deserves to go sub-60 for the first time at British Champs / a home Commies next year, hopefully with a celebration just as good as this one lol
Let’s hope so. He did 1:00:03 last year.