Luca grew up in Italy, swimming for the Rome Police Lifesaving Team when he was a child. His favourite event in those days was the 50 m “mannequin carry” (25 m front crawl, then coming back with a mannequin swimming one-armed breaststroke). Having moved to the UK, and after a 21 year gap from swimming, he joined Spencer in May 2014, having been told about us by a guy he had been chasing up and down the pool for a couple of kilometres. Luca now trains with the club four times a week, and also fits in a couple of gym sessions. Luca is a regular at swim meets, competing for the club five or six times a year. Currently his favourite events are 100m breaststroke, 200m IM and 100m freestyle. Luca recently beat his 100m freestyle PB set when he was 17 years old, and he continues to focus on improving his times, currently aiming to get closer to 60 seconds for 100m free, and to get under 1.20 for 100m Breaststroke and under 2.40 for 200m IM. Competing is not without its embarrassing moments – Luca once missed the wall on his last tumble turn on a 200 IM at the Nationals in Sheffield, and had to swim back to touch the wall. Luca enjoys working in IT for a company which provide financial tools with their own cloud , but when he leaves the office the second part of his day begins – swimming hard and spending time with other people who love swimming. His favourite swim set is one of Coach Steve’s favourites: 4×50 Fly +200 IM + 4×50 Back + 200 IM + 4×50 Breast + 200 IM + 4×40 Free + 200 IM – so it is clear why he prefers people to concentrate when the coach is explain the session.
