Freestyle Media

Four strokes, the English Channel, a hospice fundraiser and a world record. In September, Nik Haynes, Olly White, Ross Szender and Adam Tapp set a new world record for a medley relay crossing of the Channel. We catch up with Olly and Ross to hear the stories behind their swim. And what stories! There’s a unicorn, giant jellyfish, a burning building and a bout of appendicitis — and that’s before we get to the tides and weather that can make or break any Channel crossing. The team was supported...

Dan Mills joins Helen Gorman to preview the National Masters Short Course Championships in Sheffield. Last year, 17 world records fell - could we see even more this time around? We pick out the races to watch, including a mouth-watering men’s 50m freestyle showdown between Aaron Francis and Tom Cahoon, with Commonwealth Games medallist Jamie Ingram in the mix. The men’s 100m freestyle could see as many as six swimmers break the magical 50-second barrier, while 50-year-old Fleur Turner could b...

How do you plan a training camp that caters for everyone, from 50m sprinters to open water swimmers? Julie Howe chats to Mike Hodgson from Woking Swimming Club - he has tackled that challenge four times, organising the club’s training camp in Cyprus. Mike shares what he learned from getting it wrong in year one, how he structures training for such a diverse squad, and why race-pace work becomes a key focus in the four weeks leading up to the National Masters Short Course Championships in Shef...

How much can you really achieve in the gym if you only have 40 minutes a week? Strength and conditioning coach Nathan Oxford works with some of the best Masters swimmers in the world, helping them make their time in the gym count. In this episode, Nathan shares practical advice for fitting effective strength and conditioning around a busy schedule - from fundamental movement patterns and supersets to making training more specific to your events. We look at how a small, consi...

Nick Parkes shares the remarkable story of his return to swimming after suffering a cardiac arrest at the National Open Water Championships in 2023. Clinically dead for around 20 minutes, Nick has since dedicated a series of fundraising challenges to the air ambulance service that helped save his life. Now he has taken on his biggest challenge yet: swimming the full 22.5 miles of Loch Ness. Nick completed the epic swim in the dark, cold waters of the loch with fellow Masters swimmer and docto...