Stephens’ research champions a sustainable future for swimming pools

Laura Stephens announced she was retiring from elite swimming competition in September, but her ambitions to give back to the sport aim to stretch beyond an impressive career in the pool – with hopes to first get her research title of ‘Retrofit Decarbonisation of UK Swimming Pools’ published, before the ultimate goal of seeing application in industry to support a sustainable future for facilities across the country.

With medals at world, European and Commonwealth level, Stephens – who specialised in the Women’s 200m Butterfly – studied in parallel with her training, completing an undergraduate degree in Plymouth before moving to Loughborough University to begin her master’s in 2022.

“I mean it is difficult to summarise because it was just such an incredible journey to have been on,” said Stephens as she reflected on her swimming competition years.

“There were those definite highlights of reaching an Olympic final, winning a gold at worlds and being part of so many incredible teams. Looking back over it now, I'm just so happy with how everything turned out.

“Mentally how I felt finishing my career, it couldn’t have been a smoother transition really. To be able to say that I genuinely felt like I gave it absolutely everything and no stone was left unturned, has made this process a very satisfying end to an incredible chapter of my life.”

Encouraged by her parents to stay committed to her education alongside swimming, Stephens found synergy in deploying energy into both areas of life.

“I did find as I got older how the two always complemented each other, if one was going well normally the other was going well at the same time.

“The engineering [academic route] came from enjoying a bit of maths and physics at school. Originally, I'd considered becoming an architect, but when I found out how intense that degree is over seven years and speaking to universities, it just didn't seem feasible to be able to swim to the level I wanted and do that.

“So, I went down the architectural engineering route, which then opened up doorways to being more engineering focused, and eventually my master's degree, which was specifically in Building Services Engineering.”

That field of study for Stephens focused on the mechanical systems of buildings - helping develop habitable indoor environments through the optimisation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings, with a big emphasis on sustainability.

It was then with the idea for her dissertation title of ‘Retrofit Decarbonisation of UK Swimming Pools’ that brought her passions together.

“I thought I do want to be able to link the two worlds together,” she said.

“And it just happens that there is an issue with swimming pools at the moment which is related to literally what I was doing in my degree. It seemed like such a shame to pass up on that opportunity and to also hopefully give something back to the swimming community.”

“There are all sorts of different ways you can give back as an elite swimmer, for example swim clinics and club or school visits and I thoroughly enjoy doing these events, but I just thought I've got this depth of knowledge of swimming pools from spending most of my life in them, which a lot of engineers don't have.

“It's maybe a bit niche. It is a bit different, but to be able to give back some research and some insight into how we can lower swimming pool energy usage as sort of my finale of the two journeys that I've been on in education and swimming is something that I'm quite proud of.”

Having conducted the research under the wing of her tutor, Dr Mahroo Eftekhari, at Loughborough University, Stephens is moving through the processes to publish her work which could lead on to future implementation that has a lasting impact on the future of swimming pools.

The challenges faced by leisure providers has been an ongoing national topic of conversation, with Aquatics GB and the Home Nations joining forces to raise awareness of the vital importance of school swimming across the country.

“The sustainability side I’m obviously very passionate about and I don't want pools to close,” said Stephens.

“I don't want anyone to miss out on swimming lessons. We need children to be able to learn to swim, otherwise we won't have a team in 20-years’ time.

“Making sure that the next generation have the equal opportunities that we've had in terms of being able to go down to your local pool for a swim is so important. It's scary that we might be missing out on future generational stars just because they didn't have a local pool to go to, which would be such a shame for the sport. Equally from a water safety perspective, swimming is a lifesaving skill that everyone should have access to enable them to be safe in the water.”

The Paris 2024 Olympic finalist's passion and ability has already received acclaim in the professional sphere, with Stephens awarded ‘Young Engineer of the Year’ at the ASHRAE UK Technology Awards.

“It was Dr Mahroo [Eftekhari] that really kindly put me up for the award - she's been my tutor at Loughborough for the last three years and I've got a lot to thank her for always being in my corner and supporting me throughout my time at the university.

“When I won the award, being able to go to the conference, meet lots of people, talk a little bit about my swimming, my passion, and the two subjects combined was really good and I'm hoping that again pushing this research forward could lead to more recognition in that sort of field.

“It was nice to be recognised for something other than swimming, as that's the thing that I've been probably most well known for. So to have a bit of recognition for a completely different side of my life and something that I've been putting just as much hard work into alongside the swimming was again just a really proud moment for me.

“It just motivated me that in moving on from all the things that I've achieved in swimming there is still so much more to be achieved now in the in the world of engineering, in industry.”

That step into industry is one which Stephens has pleasingly found many attributes from her years in swimming transfer into, having now taken up a full-time role as a graduate engineer in the Energy and Sustainability team at WSP.

“I'm only just over a month in at the moment, so still feeling very fresh on the job. But everyone in the office here in London have been extremely welcoming, supportive, and interested as well to hear about my journey and how I've ended up now in engineering - that's been lovely to share,” added Stephens.

“I didn't realise how transferable so many of the skills from being an athlete were into being in work, just in terms of being confident and happy to speak to people and do the networking - which I'm learning is a very important part of office life.

“I also think the self-discipline side of it which I didn't realise I had so ingrained in me after swimming, has meant I’m still keeping up doing exercise and going to the gym before work to keep that very stable routine I’m used to around the new nine to five lifestyle.

“I feel very grateful to the sport which has helped me build up this skillset that I can now carry on and continue to evolve into the next part of my life.”