Technical Issues

Two of our top swimmers, Clare Custer and Thomas Bugler have just returned from representing Ireland at the 2025 European Junior Championships

The next step for swimmers after the Irish Nationals is to qualify for Irish teams at the European, and ultimately at the Olympic Games and World Championships. Here the standards required are far higher! At European level there are three competitions- Junior (18 and under), Under 23 and Open. This year, the Junior competition was held in the first week of July in Slovakia. Ireland had a team of 17-two of whom, Clare Custer and Thomas Bugler were from SWSC. This is only the second time our club had two representatives in this competition, and was the highest contribution from any Irish club.

Clare (17) lives in Florida where she trains with Sarasota Sharks but is also a long-term member of SWSC, as is her older brother Liam, who competed for Ireland in the European Juniors three years ago and still holds the National 800 m freestyle Junior record (8:06). Between the sister and brother they hold several SWSC club records, particularly at the longer distances (Check them out on this site). Clare has competed very successfully for SWSC at several Irish National competitions. For example, she was part of the National winning 13/14 relays three years ago (and also won five individual gold medals) and this year won the senior 400, 800 and 1500 freestyle at the Open Nationals in April. On this basis she was selected to swim the same events in Slovakia, where she recorded a Personal Best in the 1500 freestyle and was very near to her best times in the two other events. Competing for Ireland like this is the dream of most serious swimmers! However the difference in standards between Irish female distance freestyle and European level was obvious in that Clare’s best placing in the EJCs was 12th in the 1500. She has one more year in the EJC and we hope to see her race substantially faster next year. A key feature of her success to date (where she has just been offered and accepted a scholarship to Harvard) is her consistency in never missing a training session (nine two-hour sessions a week in a 50m pool during school holidays, mostly in doubles-two sessions a day). And just watch the speed and efficiency of her turns! Incidentally, the Sarasota Sharks lease the pool from the city council, a model that should be aspired to in Cork if SWSC is to prosper in the future.

Thomas Bugler (16) excels in the 50, 100 and 200 butterfly, and after qualification at the Irish Open in April was selected to swim these events at the EJCs. Thomas unlike Clare, has spent his entire career training with SWSC in Cork, where he and his older brother Sean are some of the most consistent attenders of practices (usually seven two-hour sessions a week). (Sean, who specializes in the longer free style events, has just completed his Leaving Cert, and plans to take up a swimming scholarship in University of Stirling in Scotland.) Like Clare, Thomas (who holds the Senior 100 fly club record at 56.46 and was, for example, a member of the winning National 13/14 mixed 400 Freestyle and Medley relays in 2023, along with Liam O’Driscoll, Aoife Gardiner and Caoilinn O’Connor) is a member of the National Performance Pathway squad (as is Caoilinn O’Connor) and has attended training sessions and International competitions with that squad throughout the season. His major strength, apart from consistency in training, is the technical excellence of his butterfly technique. In Slovakia, in very stressful high-pressure competition, he was very close to his 50 and 100 fly PBs but remarkably improved his 200 fly by almost four seconds recording a time of 2:06. He has two more years in this competition and with his rapid upward trajectory should reach finals next year and aspire to European medals in 2027.

Clare and Thomas show what can be achieved with hard consistent training and concentration on pacing and technique. Who will join them in the future?

Tom Cross – July 2025