Double success for Plymouth swimmers

A pair of Plymouth University swimmers are set to dip their toes in the water at the short course world championships in Doha in December.

Matthew Zammit and Mindaugas Sadauskas will compete alongside almost 900 swimmers from over 40 countries at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m), a week-long event, which includes 34 individual races and 12 relays.

Matthew, a second-year Physiotherapy student and international swimmer for Malta, will be racing the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle, where he expects the competition to be tough: “Each time you achieve one level, a new goal has to be reached, but that’s where my training comes in.  Building up to the event I will still be in the pool and the gym but dropping the intensity and mileage just before.  My tutors have been very understanding and supportive in the build up to my events.”

Since moving to Plymouth, Matthew, who has been swimming since the age of 12, balances his time between his studies at the City Centre campus with training in the pool at the Life Centre as part of the Plymouth Leander Swimming Club. His biggest achievement to date is racing in the World Championships in Barcelona in 2013.

Plymouth Graduate School of Management student, Mindaugas, started his swimming career at a young age after being spotted in his local swimming pool in Lithuania. He said: “I’ve already had a taste of swimming at World Championship level so I will be looking to better my times.  I will be racing in the 100 freestyle, 50 freestyle, 50 butterfly.”

Mindaugas also swims with the Plymouth Leander Club, who trained the 2012 Olympic swimmer Antony James.

The FINA (25m) or ‘Short Course Worlds’ is a biannual swimming-only event held in between the World Championships, and will get underway on 3 December with a total of 138 medals up for grabs.

For more information visit http://www.fina.org/H2O/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layou...