HISTORY
Buxton Swimming Club has been established for around 50 years. It was started to encourage the children of the town to participate in a sport and to give them something to do. Roy Davies was one of the founders and is still a life long member of BSC.
Over the years BSC has produced a number of successful swimmers who have participated at District, National and International events and have been selected for Centres of Excellence, English Youth Development Squad, Olympic Development Squad, National and Olympic Teams. Our two most successful swimmers to date are Alan Rapley who became Captain of the Olympic Swimming Team and swam in the Atlanta Games of 1996 and Abbie Wood who swam in the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Olympics and swims in the International Swimming League (ISL)
BSC started shortly after the Pavilion Gardens Swimming Pool was officially opened in 1973 a group of enthusiastic parents formed the Buxton and District Swimming Club with swimming pool staff supervising the club’s weekly swimming session and teaching basic water skills. There were teaching classes for non swimming children and adult classes for mixed abilities which progressed to teaching survival swimming, distance swimming and life saving.
BSC quickly developed into a more competitive club and started to compete in local swimming galas. The lack of competition skills were more than compensated by the enthusiasm of competing children and supportive parents and coaches. Once the club became well established we needed more water time and the aid of qualified A.S.A. coaches and teachers to develop the swimming abilities of the club members, to enable them to compete at various levels. We competed in league competitions, Champions of the Peak and Plains, Crusader and Diddy League. We have produced some fine swimmers who have competed in Derbyshire, Midlands, National and International levels, even Olympic and Special Olympic swimmers, following this tradition we currently have a team young hopefuls who are looking at future Olympics and we continue to looking at encourage swimming talent.
Recently the club has established the Abbie Wood Swimming Academy to coach young swimmers in the techniques needed to swim competitively.
Press Articles
Happy Homecoming for Swimming Club – 31/07/2011
Gala success for Buxton swimmers – 22/07/2012
Club’s night of record breakers – 25/11/2013
Ex-Olympic skippers hands out club awards – 30/01/2014
Abbie and Ben impress at county finals – 05/11/2014
Students Scoop Top Swimming Awards – 30/11/2017
The faces of Buxton Swimming Club from down the years – 12/01/2022