Trials to join the team take place early in Michaelmas term (October to December). The sign up form for trials will be below when released.
Whilst most people will have continued training up until arriving in Cambridge, don’t let this put you off if you’ve had a break from the water for example for a gap year, this will be taken into account when considering potential talent. Just bring along your PB’s to give us an idea of what your standard was. There is no limit on who can try out, we encourage everyone who is interested to come along and give it a go.
At trials you’ll be asked to swim 100m freestyle and 50m of any other stroke and then depending on how fast you swim we may invite to join either the first or the second team. If you do not get into the team that you wished to get into, don’t worry. A lot of swimmers move from Seconds to Blues team and if you perform well in BUCS or other competitions, you may be able to move up to Blues. If you missed the competitive squads, there is often another trial in Lent Term for Seconds team.
There are no fixed minimum times for each team, as it may vary by year how strong the cohort of swimmers are for each stroke (and separately so for both male/open and female).
The team has strong links with the City of Cambridge SC. Members of CUSWPC also have the opportunity to train with City with some swimmers going for an occasional early season fitness crisis session whilst others are full members of both clubs.
Swimming Training Camp
Every Winter the Cambridge University swimming captains have organized a weeks’ training camp in preparation for Lent term (January to March). Generally the trip begins soon after New Year to end just before the next term starts. So far the destinations have been Jersey, Wales, Budapest, London’s Crystal Palace, The Army’s facility in Aldershot, and in recent years, the team have completed their training camp in the Canary Islands.
There is often also a pre-Lent term training week, of which both Seconds and Blues swimmer will swim about 15 hours in the week.
Enduring the aches and stiffness of a week’s solid training and enjoying the social side and the sight-seeing as a team leads to great team bonding over the week as well as an increase in fitness.