UCLA Club Sports

SAN DIEGO – The UCLA Club Swimming team competed at its first away meet of the school year at the 2024 College Club Swimming Western Regional Championship, which was hosted by the University of California, San Diego on Nov. 16-17, 2024.  

40 Bruins traveled to San Diego to participate in the meet, with UCLA Club Swimming finishing 16th out of 29 participating teams.  The women's team placed 13th and the men's team placed 17th.

Leading the fast swims for the women was third-year student and team external vice president Erin Nagel, who placed sixth in the Women's 200 Yard IM with a time of 2:17.19.  Nagel also anchored the Women's 400 Freestyle Relay alongside Claire Wu, Gabrielle Lai and Emily Fee, placing seventh with a time of 3:50.95.

Two other successful relays for the women's team were found in the Women's 200 Yard Freestyle Relay and the Women's 200 Yard Medley Relay.  In the former, the quartet of Olivia Reitano, Christine Wu, Claire Wu, and Pamela Nelson placed eighth with a time of 1:44.51.  In the latter, the team of Katherine Stone, Janet Dong, Christine Wu and Jayza Calderon finished 13th with a time of 2:01.40. 

Other speedy individual swims on the women's side included Lai's performance in the Women's 400 Yard IM, where she finished seventh place with a time of 5:08.62.  Likewise, Claire Wu made the finals for the Women's 100 Yard Breaststroke, placing 18th with a time of 1:13.50.

On the men's side, third-year student and team treasurer Artem Kiryukhin led the team by swimming in the finals for two individual events.  In the Men's 50 Yard Freestyle, Kiryukhin finished 14th with a time of 21.89, while he placed 18th in the Men's 50 Yard Butterfly with a time of 24.12.

Kiryukhin also served as anchor for three relays.  In the Men's 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, Kiryukhin swam with Antonio Miguel Buan, Evan Fu, and Brody Redline to finish 12th with a time of 1:30.73.  In the Men's 200 Yard Medley Relay, Kiryukhin followed Samantha Herman, Edward Chiang, and Redline to place 14th with a time of 1:41.35.  Likewise, the team of Edi Zhang, Bryan Duyck, Buan, and Kiryukhin placed 18th with a time of 3:32.93 in the Men's 400 Yard Freestyle Relay. 

In addition to participating on two relays, Redline placed 15th in the Men's 200 Yard Butterfly with a time of 2:06.30.  In the same event, Andrew Chen also made the finals and placed 17th with a time of 2:07.10.

Several other fast swims took place on the second day of the meet where team members qualified for finals during prelims but were not able to compete in evening finals before the team drove back to Los Angeles.

On the women's side, Fee placed 13th in the Women's 100 Yard Freestyle with a time of 56.54, Christine Wu placed 18th in the Women's 100 Yard Butterfly with a time of 1:04.30, and Maggie Uceda placed 19th in the Women's 200 Breaststroke with a time of 2:50.22.  In the Women's 200 Yard Backstroke, Reitano finished sixth with a time of 2:20.47 and Lai came in ninth with a time of 2:22.90.

On the men's side, Kiryukhin placed 10th with a time of 47.47 in the Men's 100 Yard Freestyle.  In the Men's 200 Yard Backstroke, Redline came in eighth with a time of 2:01.94 and Jonah Pawlak placed 19th with a time of 2:12.02.

Despite not placing first at the College Club Swimming Western Regional Championship, the Bruins competed with a wide variety of competition from across California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.  The Bruins' first away meet of the 2024-2025 season was a success!