British Masters Championships make long-awaited return to England this weekend

The annual British Masters Championships returns to Sheffield for the first time in seven years on Friday as the three-day competition gets underway at Ponds Forge.

The Championships host Britain’s fastest Masters swimmers in a meet which often sees world, European and British records broken.

The competition takes place in a long course 50m pool with Swim England hosting on a bi-annual basis as the competition rotates between each of the Home Nations.

Ponds Forge last hosted the competition in 2016, with Plymouth’s Life Centre staging the last running of the event in England back in 2018.

More than 800 swimmers are expected to travel to South Yorkshire from 2-4 June for the event that kick-starts a busy summer of Masters swimming that includes the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Kyushu, Japan in August.

Last year saw more than 50 new records were set at the Championships in Aberdeen.

The event, hosted by Scottish Swimming, saw seven new world records set as well as 15 new European records too.

And this year is a special one for the competition as para-swimmers will get the opportunity to take part in the Championships in their own multi-classifications races for the very first time.

Para-swimming will be integrated into the programme as a trial, with medals up for grabs for S1-S14 classified para-swimmers in a number of events.

Who will win the Cupar Trophy?

As well as the individual and relay events, the British Masters Championships also features the prestigious Cupar Trophy which is awarded to the best-performing club at the competition.

Throughout the three days’ clubs will be awarded points based on their swimmers performances in each of the events.

Last year’s title went to home town club Silver City Blues who scored a massive 404 points at the competition.

London’s Spencer Swim Team finished second with 292 points who will be hoping that they can claim the title on home turf this time around.

On the back of their Otter 150 Cup success at the Swim England National Masters Championships in October, Trafford Metro could be a team to watch at they look to improve on their sixth place finish from last year.

You can follow all the action from the British Masters Championships with our live results page which will soon be updated to include start lists for each event.