Across the Channel with Tads Ciecierski-Holmes

“I thought, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it,” says Tads, who made it onto the team after succeeding in the trials. But before he attempts his portion of the Channel, Tads has had to prove he’ll be able to manage the very cold—and often very rough—open water, some of which must be swum in the dark, and all of which must be done without a wetsuit.

“We had to pass a two-hour swim test in sub 15.5-degree water,” he says. “And when we did it at the start of April it was 13.8 degrees. That was tough. When it got to the final ten minutes I couldn’t think anymore. The only things that kept me in the water were my partner supporting me from the edge, and the thought that if I got out, I’d have to do it again.”

The team is made up of six swimmers, each of whom will swim for an hour of the approximately ten hours it takes to swim across the Channel—usually a distance of 21 miles that can vary with the tides. Some members of the team will need to swim twice, and some will need to start their swim in the dark – the race begins at 3am.

“With open water swimming you’re usually aiming for a buoy,” says Tads. “This is just… aim for France.”

The race will take place sometime between July 11-17, depending on the weather. The day before they’re due to race, the team will get a call and make their way to a pier in Dover to begin the swim. Beyond the goal of beating Oxford, the team is also raising money for Ocean Conservation Trust, a Plymouth-based charity whose mission is to restore and protect the ocean. “Our captain is an Antarctic researcher,” says Tads, “and she proposed the charity. Also it kind of made sense, considering what we’re doing!”

Besides this swim, Tads – who is in his final year of the Graduate Medicine programme – is also a member of the University’s Modern Pentathlon team and has just been nominated for Cambridge’s Sports Club Personality of the Year.

“Loads of people go really hard on medicine,” says Tads, “and it’s what I want to do as a career, but it doesn’t define me as a person. The sporting community that I’ve been involved with are my favourite people, and I think if you have places to be and things to do you get your work done. Sport has kept me sane.”