Enfield swimming star Tim Shuttleworth insists setting a new Championship record at BUCS Nationals on his way to winning gold will serve as the perfect warm-up to April’s British Championships.

Loughborough University’s Shuttleworth, who represented Team GB at the Rio Olympics last summer, clocked a time of 15:08.88 to win the 1500m title, before adding 200m freestyle bronze the following day.

Taking place from Friday to Sunday, BUCS Nationals saw more than 6,000 students from up and down the country descend on the Steel City for three action-packed days of sport.

This year’s British Championships will double up as the trials for the upcoming World Championships in July, and 19-year-old Shuttleworth insists he is more than ready for the challenge that lies in wait.

“I’m really happy with my performance. I set the previous Championship record last year, but to go faster this year feels really good,” said the former Latymer School student.

“It’s especially pleasing because I’m doing a lot of training at the moment, I’m swimming 80,000m a week, so to come here after a hard week and swim fast is just fantastic.

“I didn’t expect to put in a performance like that, I just came here for a bit of fun, I was using it as a training swim.

“There were some really fast guys in the pool with me who pushed me all the way.

“Outside of BUCS, I’m soon travelling with British Swimming to Indianapolis for a Grand Prix meet, and after that, it’s the run up to the British trials.

“I’m feeling confident ahead of the trials. Last year, I went in as very much the underdog but I managed to qualify for the Olympics, so this year there is a bit more pressure on me. But I’m really looking forward to the challenge.”

The UK’s largest annual multi-sport event, BUCS Nationals proved to be a success for Enfield judoka Prisca Awiti-Alcaraz too, as she clinched under-63kg gold for the second year in succession.

And the Bath University student couldn’t have been happier to retain her title.

“This is my second BUCS Nationals,” said the 20-year-old. “I won it last year so there was quite a bit of pressure to win it again this year so I’m happy to have done so.

“It’s a lot of pressure, especially being a high performance university with high performance judo players, because you’re not expected to lose to anyone so there’s a lot on the line.”

British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national governing body for Higher Education (HE) sport in the UK, organising leagues and competitions for more than 150 institutions across 52 different sports. BUCS Nationals is the UK’s largest annual multi-sport event, bringing over 6,000 athletes to Sheffield to compete in 9 sports