Euro medals for Stirling swim duo

University of Stirling swimmers Duncan Scott and Scott McLay enjoyed international success this past weekend – as they won three medals at the 2019 European Short Course Swimming Championships.

Following on from his impressive displays at this summer’s World Championships, Scott won two silvers at Tollcross in Glasgow. The first came in the 200m freestyle, where he narrowly lost out to Lithuanian rival, Danas Rapšys, before the Sports Studies and Business Studies student lined up with Stirling teammate McLay to finish second in the mixed 4 x 50m freestyle mixed relay with Anna Hopkin and Freya Anderson.

The men led the team off and, with the opposition teams taking the same approach, the Stirling duo gave their female counterparts every chance. Hopkin produced an outstanding swim, which would later be confirmed as the fastest female split of the race, to mean Anderson would enter the water neck and neck with her rivals.

With two gold medals to her name already, the Ellesmere swimmer delivered a blistering anchor to secure the silver, to the home crowd’s delight. For Hopkin and McLay, this was their first senior international medal and the Stirling athlete is happy to have made his mark at the event.

McLay said: “I'm really happy with tonight - we've all come together to produce our best and we're lucky enough to come away with some silverware, so I'm really happy with our performance.”

Commenting on his own performances at the meet, Scott said: “It’s been a good week. I’ve learnt a lot and have got a lot out of it.

“It’s a meet where I’ve really challenged myself in a lot of different events, with back-to-backs and racing hard in the morning. I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve surprised myself with some of the swims I’ve done in the morning.

“This isn’t just about this week but the past three weeks. It’s been different to previous years with back-to-back weekends of racing and a lot of different events as well, so there’s a lot to look over and look through. But overall I’m delighted with how I’ve swam this week.”

The University of Stirling has been Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence since 2008 and is The Times / Sunday Times Good University Guide’s UK Sports University of the Year 2020. The University offers an unrivalled all-round environment for excellence in sport education, research, participation, and performance.