Latest news with #AquaticsGBSwimmingChampionships
The Herald Scotland
24-05-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Goodburn's story shows sport can steady the mind when body betrays us
I'm sitting recovering from a hard 18 holes of golf here in Jamaica and my mind drifts to next week. I'm returning to Edinburgh for an evening of conversation with Capital Conversations via America, London then a long drive up through the country to hopefully arrive fresh and ready. Capital Conversations: Inside the Mind will be held at The University of Edinburgh in partnership with Macleod Media. I'll be sharing the stage with Archie Goodburn, a world championship medalist, a Commonwealth Games swimmer, and someone who, like me, lives with a chronic, complex medical condition that offers no cure, but no clear end either. Archie represents the best of Scottish sport. But it's not just his speed in the water that makes him remarkable. It's his story outside of it. In 2024, Archie went public with a diagnosis that changed everything: three inoperable oligodendrogliomas, a rare form of brain cancer. The news came after months of unexplained seizures and numbness, symptoms which he initially wrote off as migraines. At just 22, he was thrust into a world of scans, uncertainty, and life-altering conversations with doctors, the kind that leave you suspended between hope and fear. What makes Archie's path so resonant for me is this shared middle ground we both occupy. We're not terminal. But we're not 'cured' either. We live in the grey area, the daily negotiation between gratitude for life and the anxiety of not knowing what's next. In those moments lying in the MRI scanner, hearing a consultant walk in with new results, you don't feel like an athlete. You just feel human. Exposed. Powerless. And yet, Archie keeps swimming. He won silver in the 50m breaststroke at the 2025 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships, a performance that speaks volumes not just about talent, but about sheer psychological endurance. Like me, he's found that sport becomes more than a profession or pastime it becomes a coping mechanism. A form of control when everything else feels unsteady. His strength, both physical and emotional, is exactly why I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's not about medals. It's about meaning. How we move forward, not because we're fearless, but because we've learned how to carry the fear. Beyond the pool, Archie is pursuing an Integrated Masters in Chemical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. His academic excellence was recognised when he was awarded the Principal's Medal in 2024, honouring his outstanding contributions to the university community. For both of us, sport has been our scaffolding, a way to steady the mind when the body betrays us. Edinburgh also holds a unique place in my story. While I didn't study at the university, I spent countless hours at FASIC - the sports medicine clinic - tucked behind the gym. That's where I rehabbed many injuries over the years. Long before I ever sat across from a consultant delivering life-altering news, I would spend hours and hours with the medical team and the well known physio Sand Lysol who has looked after hundreds of Scottish athletes. And that's the thread that runs through this upcoming conversation: control, or the loss of it. Whether you're on the start line of a final, staring down the lane, or lying still in an MRI scanner, waiting for answers, the emotional weight is oddly similar. The same surge of anxiety, the same deep breath, the same flicker of doubt. You know everything could change in a moment. And you have no control. When a doctor walks into the room with a scan result, time warps. There's no warm-up. No preparation. Just news that can rewrite your life in a sentence. You try to brace for it, but the body reacts anyway, your heart races, your mouth dries, your legs feel like lead. That's why sport is more than an outlet. It's survival almost. It teaches us how to stay present. How to regulate the chaos. How to fall apart and still finish the race. The habits built on the track, in the gym, or on the course, they carry over into the darkest, loneliest places. They remind us that resilience is not about pretending to be okay. It's about finding rhythm in uncertainty. And rhythm, for me, has always started with movement. This event is about what happens inside, inside the mind of athletes, yes, but also inside the bodies that won't always cooperate. Inside the medical systems. Inside the quiet spaces between diagnosis and decision. If you're in or around Edinburgh this coming Thursday, we wouid love for you to join us. There are only a handful of tickets left. Rhona Macleod will be hosting the conversation, and if you know Rhona, you'll know she brings empathy and depth to every word. This is not a sports talk. It's a human one. A conversation about identity, pressure, uncertainty, and purpose. And maybe, just maybe, it'll help someone else standing on their own start line or sitting in their own MRI scanner feel a little less alone.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Macinnes retains second title at British finals
Aquatics GB Swimming Championships When: 15-20 April Where: London Aquatics Centre Coverage: Each night of the championships including the finals of every event will be available on iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app from 18.45 BST. Scotland's Keanna Macinnes has retained the British 100m butterfly title at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in London. The 23-year-old edged out University of Stirling team-mate Lucy Grieve by 0.06sec to add to her 200m title won earlier this week. But club-mate Katie Shanahan was beaten into second place in the 200m individual medlay final by England's Abbie Wood, the bronze medallist from last year's world championships.
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
McMillan fourth and Firth third at GB Championships
Olympic gold medallist Jack McMillan finished fourth at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships, while Paralympic champion Bethany Firth was third in her was fourth in the 200m freestyle final at the London Aquatics Centre, while Firth was third in the multi-classification women's 200m individual from Northern Ireland, was fourth behind Duncan Scott and James Guy, who were tied for first, while Matt Richards was third. The trio have 15 Olympic medals between them and won gold at the Paris Games in the 4x200m final alongside Tom Dean, while McMillan secured his gold by swimming in the didn't compete in the trials but was pre-selected for the upcoming World Championships in the relay along with Scott, Guy and looks set to join them in Singapore, most likely in the same capacity as last summer, where he is likely to swim the heats once giving birth to baby Charlotte in July, six-time Paralympic champion Firth was third in her 200m individual 29-year-old has returned to full-time training and is aiming to qualify for the World Para-swimming Championships in September. S14 competitor Firth touched first on 889 points, thanks in the main to her characteristically outstanding backstroke leg. Faye Rogers came in just behind in a new S10 British record of 2:28.97 but scored more points on 919 to briefly sit in the gold-medal position, only for S8 athlete Brock Whiston in lane one to power home for an overall tally of 921 and take the the Irish championships last week, Firth recorded a time in the 100m backstroke that would have won gold at the Paris Paralympics by one-hundredth of a second, so is showing good form and will look to make the GB team at the Summer National Championships at the end of July as she returns to competitive action.
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Guy & Scott finish equal first in dramatic 200m
James Guy and Duncan Scott were tied for first in a dramatic men's 200m freestyle at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in was plenty of anticipation for the last race of the meet, which also included Olympic 200m freestyle silver medallist Matt storming into the lead, Richards ended in third place with a time of one minute and 45.35 seconds, as he was pegged back by Guy and Scott who finished in 1: 22-year-old Richards was already guaranteed a spot in the event at the World Championships this summer as those who won medals at the 2024 Olympics in Paris had already earned their with Guy and Scott in equal first, it leaves a question mark over who will be joining him in Singapore."I was really happy to be in there," said Scott, 27. "I didn't quite know where I would be at this meet and have surprised myself quite a lot. Buzzing with that." Richards, the 2023 world 200m freestyle champion, won the British title last year. "That was always the plan, to try to win a bit different," he said about his strategy in going off so quickly."With that pre-selection, it meant that I could try to swim in a way I that I've not done before. I can probably confirm I won't be doing that again in the summer."Ben Proud added to his men's 50m freestyle victory by winning the 50m butterfly final in 23.21. Angharad Evans, 21, broke her own British record to claim the women's 100m breaststroke title in 1:05.37, while 24-year-old Freya Anderson won the women's 100m freestyle in 54.09.
BBC News
19-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Macinnes retains second title at British finals
Aquatics GB Swimming ChampionshipsWhen: 15-20 April Where: London Aquatics CentreCoverage: Each night of the championships including the finals of every event will be available on iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app from 18.45 BST. Scotland's Keanna Macinnes has retained the British 100m butterfly title at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in 23-year-old edged out University of Stirling team-mate Lucy Grieve by 0.06sec to add to her 200m title won earlier this club-mate Katie Shanahan was beaten into second place in the 200m individual medlay final by England's Abbie Wood, the bronze medallist from last year's world championships.
