Plymouth College swimmer, Ruta Meilutyte, and Director of Swimming, Jon Rudd have both made historic and unique grand slams in world swimming.
After taking top spots at the World Youth Olympics and European Long Course Championships this summer, Ruta, 17, has become the first swimmer ever to win all eleven major international gold medals at junior and senior level. Before she even turns 18, Ruta has taken titles at:
- Olympic Games
- World Long Course Championships
- World Short Course Championships
- Swimming World Cup
- European Long Course Championships
- European Short Course Championships
- World Youth Olympic Games
- World Junior Championships
- World Schools Games
- European Junior Championships
- European Youth Olympic Festival
For Jon it's an even bigger number for his historic grand slam, having coached thirteen different international gold medal swims at every major event on the calendar, sometimes on more than one occasion. In addition to the above list, Jon has also coached champions at the Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth Youth Games.
"What Ruta has achieved in winning those 11 majors is something that has never been done before by any swimmer", said Jon. "Even Mark Spitz and Ian Thorpe never did in it in their careers so this is an amazing statistic that will never be beaten.
"Ruta's wins in Nanjing and also in Berlin simply underlined the remarkable athlete that she is as it involved not just coming up with the goods in the pool, but also an incredibly long journey. But she wasn't at all fazed, she just said 'it has to be done' and her determination was humbling.
"We get applications from all over the world to be part of the Plymouth College/Plymouth Leander programme and we now have athletes from 30 different nationalities in Plymouth. The interest that this city and its programme is generating is incredible."
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