Backstroke ace, Lauren Quigley joins us at the start of a Commonwealth Games year to reflect on the medals she won at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and during an illustrious career at saw her crack the 60 second mark for 100m backstroke (long course).

Hailing from a swimming family, we discuss the intense pressure she felt leading into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Trials, and how her experiences as an elite swimmer have shaped her new career as a firefighter.

Lauren talks about the sense of community from taking part in masters swimming and representing the fire service swimming team and offers a host of tips for anyone looking to improve their swimming performances.

John Wood joins Helen Gorman to reflect on the European Masters Short Course Championships held in Lublin, Poland. We discuss everything from John's impressive gold medal and lifetime best performance in the 100m butterfly to the size of pizza slices available at the pool cafe.

We review the world record breaking performances and highlight a few star performances by British swimmers. We also cover the organisation of the championships and the value of having a major international short course event in the masters calendar.

Celebrating a new year, we look at key meets for 2026, and how to structure training cycles. We also consider the importance of preparation meets and scheduled recovery.

Rival Inter County team managers from Surrey (Laura Kerrigan) and Hampshire (James MacTavish) take on the 'Inter County Christmas Cup', a new podcast game show devised without any rules or a scoring system. Helen Gorman asks the questions and Joe Malone is called in work out who wins.

This Christmas special covers training traditions as well as a review of what happened in 2025. We put forward nominations for the Freestyle Media masters swimmer of the year and look ahead to 2026. See you all in the new year, thanks for listening! Follow us on Instagram for video clips and https://www.instagram.com/freestyle_media_swimming/.

Visit https://www.allensswimwear.co.uk and use the code ‘MastersPod’ to access discount on non-sale items.