After an incredible showing at the BUCS Short Course Swimming Championships in term one, sport scholar Owen Say is aiming for more success at this weekends BUCS Nationals. In Sheffield he will be competing with his University of Nottingham Swimming Club team mates in the long course Championships. Owen is a para-athlete and as a sports scholar has experienced plenty of success, with his gold winning performances in the short course making him the most decorated BUCS swimmer in University of Nottingham Swimming Club history. Alongside his heroics in the pool, Owen has entered his final year of studying a BA in Archaeology and Geography as part of the Faculty of Arts. We spoke to Owen ahead of BUCS Nationals to find out more about his preparations and story so far.
Great to meet you Owen, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your sport?
I’ve pretty much been swimming since I was about three years old. I was almost literally just thrown in at the deep end and went from there. I just carried on learning and progressively got better, moving straight into club training and competitions. Eventually, I just got better. The London 2012 Olympics came around, and seeing Jonathan Fox in the 100m backstroke and Ollie Hynd in the 200 IM that got me wanting to train.
So, you were already swimming at that time?
Yes, so I was training club level and various regional club championships, but after that I was thinking “Ok, I could actually take this a bit more seriously.” I was probably about eleven or twelve, so I would’ve been training with Bracknell or Woking at the time. I got some time outside school, literally once or twice a week, taking whatever training I could get. I then finished school and had a gap year – which was around the same time COVID happened – and therefore had all my holidays cancelled. However, that meant I could just fully focus on training.
During COVID, how did you adapt your training?
Pools were closed, so a lot of stuff was over Zoom, but to be honest that was the best thing because I didn’t have school and I didn’t have work. That meant I could train a lot more and probably getting a lot fitter than I usually would be. At that point I had started training with Wycombe District Swimming Club which is now a National Performance Centre so I tried to make the most out of the facilities over there. Then, I came over to Nottingham. The main reason I came to Nottingham was because of swimming. It was literally either a case of I could go to Nottingham or Nottingham Trent, because I was training with Nova Centurion. It has luckily turned out pretty well – to get into this University, and now at this point I am training with Nova and with the University of Nottingham Swimming Club.
How supportive has your family been? I guess they’ve helped you quite a bit.
Yes, they have been massively supportive. I’d say both my mum and my dad have been helping me right from day one. Going through the operations, they were by my side. They were very supportive and have also adapted to what I have needed. They got me into swimming for survival skills, and then once I started into club training and started moving up the leader boards they thought that this might actually go somewhere. They started to invest a bit more time and moved me from Bracknell to Wycombe. When I suggested that I wanted to go to the city of Nottingham, initially just to train, they were definitely up for it. I think one thing they’ve done to steer me in the right direction is putting academics above everything else. That’s the one thing they’re making sure I’m taking away from this. In terms of importance, it goes university, training, and then everything else comes after.
What course are you studying and what made you want to study in that area?
I’m doing Archaeology and Geography – joint honours. Mainly because I was pretty good at Geography, but also, I had never done Archaeology before, so I was kind of just interested to see what it was like. Obviously, I still had a lot to learn and figure out what it was and it’s pretty cool – every summer there are field trips. There was one which happened last summer, that was really fun and I’m hoping to go again this year.
When you applied did you know about these experiences?
I knew there would be some digging obviously, but I didn’t actually think it would be interesting! I just thought it would be digging up a pebble and you would be seeing what the pebble was according to them. I ended up digging up a worked piece of iron from the Anglo Saxon era – it’s really interesting.
Did you know much about the University of Nottingham in particular before you applied?
I have been here a few times before because I was on the Paraswimming National development squad. We would have a training camp or meeting day, just to catch up with everyone, and it would be at random points around the UK. Every so often we’d come to David Ross and have an hour-long session in the pool, and a bit of strength and conditioning in one of the studios. Having a first-hand look at the facilities I thought – it’s pretty good here!
How have you found balancing your swimming with your course?
I think my first year was alright because it was still lockdown, so again, I didn’t have much to do other than train and university work. My second year was probably where I took a bit of a dip where suddenly everything opened back up and I decided to take advantage of that. However, now I am in my final year now and I’ve started to get my head screwed on and shifting bits and pieces into the way it should be. I’ve finally got my time management where I want it.
With your swimming, do you have set training times to help you plan around that? And when do you compete – are there regular competitions?
Usually it’s split into two main seasons. The short course of racing in 25m pools is during the first half of the year which we’ve just come out of - that’s where we had BUCS success in term one. We’ve just come into the long course season with racing in 50m pools, with BUCS again coming up this week. The main competitions I’ve got coming up are BUCS, then BPSIM which is the British Para Swimming International meet. That will be mid-March, and then the big one is in middle of summer - the World Championships. I’ve only qualified for one event, which is one of my least favourite events – 100m breaststroke, but hopefully with the competitions coming up, I can do well get and some good results which will mean better qualifications for the World Championships.
Obviously you have already competed at the first of those two competitions – the short course – which was pretty successful. How was that for you?
I loved it. I think that was only the second time I’ve competed at BUCS for the university because first year was COVID. In my second year I got to do short course and that was great, but then my international competitions clashed with long course, so it’s only the second time I’ve managed to compete with the university team. But still, it’s really cool. It’s much like the regular competition atmosphere because everyone you know is there as well, sometimes you also see friends from clubs back home. You feel like you’ve got quite a lot of people behind you, which easily contributes to better results and is way more useful in providing a good atmosphere.
There is clearly good support from the club when you all go together as part of the university. What is being a part of the swimming club like?
Everyone is pretty much cheering on everyone, that’s how it always is. From as soon as they get up on the starting box to as soon as they come into the end. That definitely pushes you to better your times. Pretty much every race I had at the last BUCS event was a personal best. I did 50m free, 100m free, and 400m free, which I am doing again at long course. I got gold, gold, and a silver respectively, which I think having the team and everyone I knew there probably helped motivate me to achieve those results. According to our president, I am nowthe most decorated swimmer in University of Nottingham history which is pretty cool.
Looking forward to the long course at Nationals, with the confidence from previous successes, what are you aiming for?
I think obviously I can still get some personal best’s (PB’s). I haven’t raced a long course event since last year because we are still coming into a new season, so it has been a while. Hopefully I can dust off the cobwebs and get more PB’s at this meet because as mentioned, last time out I achieved gold, gold, silver, so it might be nice to go for three golds this time!
In terms of your preparation, how will you be building up to the Nationals meet?
The things I’ve found the most useful are probably strength and conditioning, and gym work, because they really help build up muscle and build up strength. It’s nice to have stamina, but there’s always the little things like pushing off the wall and starting block to get a few metres further if you’ve got that extra muscle power. It really does come down to the milliseconds and may well do this weekend.
You’ve mentioned you are a paraswimmer. Do you mind expanding on that?
I have had about fourteen operations - reconstructive surgery on my hands and feet. When I was born I had just one finger on each hand and one toe on each foot. Fourteen operations later, they removed the toes and transferred them to my hands, creating my thumbs, and then some other medical stuff happened too – I don’t know, they did the hard stuff for me! So after every operation I have had to reset myself, re-learn to walk or re-learn to swim. So, that para side to is interesting in getting back into the pool and finding a new way to compete - a new way to tackle a race. It provides a different perspective to the international athletes like Jonathan Fox or Ollie Hynd when you realise they had to overcome some major hurdles themselves in order to swim, let alone compete. My category in paraswimming is S8.
Has your course been accommodating to your training and competitions?
Luckily, everything is usually recorded, so even if I miss a lecture, it doesn’t take long for me to catch up on it. Even then, I don’t think I have missed much if it’s in regards to competitions and it doesn’t clash with training. I think I’ve just been pretty lucky. Even if I did have clashes, I am sure I could have a word with a tutor and they’d be more than happy to accommodate me. Luckily being a scholar, I have more support for that.
What are your aims after you leave University?
I think, I might be making this up on the spot right now, but I might just take another gap year. I think after university I might just stay in Nottingham again – that is the whole reason I came here – for the city and for the training. I might even stay with Nova and train full time with them, which would definitely be useful. Instead of juggling work and academics with training, I could just go full force with that, and that might mean I get even better results than I do now. Right now, I am working as a part time swimming teacher, so I could go full time into that too. I think I see myself coaching once I’ve properly got the knack of teaching. Right now I’m coaching kids how to swim in terms of survival skills. I could evolve that into coaching – getting people up to a competitive level.
So, focussing back in on Nationals - you’re just aiming for PB’s and see where you come in the rankings? How are the club preparing? Is everyone starting to get excited?
I am on the committee with the swim team at the moment. The captains – me and Amy – are kind of all hands on deck getting ready for all of our upcoming events. For BUCS, the Swimming Club are hoping to take about twenty swimmers - ten boys, ten girls. It’s looking pretty promising for the whole team and I'm confident that we can achieve what we set out to! Everyone is really looking forward to the weekend, competing and supporting each other along the way.
We would like to thank Owen for his time and wish him and his team mates the very best of luck this weekend at BUCS Nationals. If previous performances are to go by, we are sure that the championships will be a great success for all involved.
Find out more about performance sport and combining your studies with elite university sport at the University of Nottingham here.
Posted on Thursday 23rd February 2023