One of the last major swimming championships of 2025 took place in Lublin in Poland over the past week. The European Short Course Championships boasted some of Europe’s biggest swimming stars in what is also the last major short course meet on the 2025/26 season. There were strong performances from the British swimmers competing at this meet winning 11 medals and finishing 3^rd in the medal table after 6 days of racing.

Duncan Scott took the 200-metre freestyle gold medal, just ahead of British and University of Stirling teammate Jack Macmillan. Macmillan also had a strong performance in the 400-metre freestyle taking the Gold medal ahead of strong competition from Lukas Maertens of Germany and Daniel Wiffen of Ireland.

Matt Richards set a British record in the 100-metre freestyle of 45.82 to win the Bronze medal. Maxime Grousset from France won the Gold in this event along with the 100-metre butterfly. He also won medals in the 100 individual medley, 50 metre butterfly and freestyle. Another big name at this meet was Noe Ponti from Switzerland. Ponti won Gold in the 200-metre butterfly, 50 metre butterfly, and the 100 individual medley. He set some especially fast time in the 50-metre butterfly which is his specialty.

There was another Gold medal for the British team with Lauren Cox winning the 100-metre backstroke in a British record time. She narrowly missed out on a medal in the 50-metre backstroke. Oliver Morgan won a Bronze medal in the men’s 100 metre backstroke. The other British medals came from Freya Colbert in the 200 and 400 metre freestyle with 2 Bronze medals. Katie Shanahan, Angharad Evans, and Max Litchfield took Silver medals in the 200 backstroke, 200 breaststroke and 400 individual medley respectively. British youngster Filip Nowacki continues his steady improvements in the breaststroke finishing just shy of a medal in his preferred 200 metre breaststroke but did set a European Junior record in the process. He will be hoping for further improvements in the long course season in the new year.

Some other notable performances at this meet from big names included Polish swimmer Katarzyna  winning Gold in the women’s 50 metre freestyle in front of her home crowd, Italian Thomas Ceccon won the 100 metre backstroke, Caspar Corbeau in the 100 metre breaststroke, and Daniel Wiffen of Ireland who took a Gold in the 1500 metre freestyle and 2 bronze medals in the 400 and 800 metre freestyle.  

After a busy year of swimming featuring a World Championships in the summer and the World Cup in October the swimmers will have a chance to rest over Christmas and build up training into the long course season in 2026.