Propulsion Swimming Podcast · Propulsion Swimming

Ciara Schlosshan: How being a student athlete is helping chase senior success

·36 min

Ciara opens after doing really well in Luxembourg. The hosts frame her as one of the standout butterfly swimmers at the University of Edinburgh and use that to unpack how student-athlete life has sat alongside her climb into senior racing, which has taken longer than her junior record once suggested. She was good early. She made her first European junior team at 14 and medalled at that level, so the sport knew her name before she reached adulthood. Then the senior jump stalled. A move to the Bath National Centre at 18 came with the sense that she was older than she really was, even though she was still very young. The timeline stayed flat for a while. She talks about a six-year stretch before finally putting a new PB on her 200 again at the World University Games. That matters. The episode treats the breakthrough as something earned through patience rather than one lucky swim. Luxembourg gives another marker. The hosts see it as evidence that the results are starting to match the work, not just the promise. Commonwealth Games selection sits in the background. Ciara is honest about needing the times, needing to place well, and knowing how strong the women's fly and medley groups are. The depth is real. She also sounds genuinely up for that fight, because racing the best girls is part of what makes the whole thing exciting. The team angle never goes away. The chat turns to whether more than one Scot could make the same final, and even whether a relay could come together. That is the fun of it. The episode lands on a swimmer who is no longer waiting for senior success to arrive someday, because it is already showing up in pieces.

As heard by us

A patient senior-rise story with real Commonwealth Games stakes.

Ciara Slosson’s route is treated as the point of the episode: early junior promise, a slower senior climb, and the long stretch between them. The discussion keeps circling back to Edinburgh, the move back from Luxembourg, and how her butterfly work, plus a possible relay role,…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the inside track on a late senior breakthrough story that actually feels earned.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify