12 July 11
At the weekends National Long Course Masters swimming championships held at the John Charles 50 metre pool in Leeds, Trafford swimmers broke one world record, 4 European and 4 British records.
The new world record was set in the 4x100 freestyle mixed team relay for combined age 240+. Neil McKinnon led the race off handing over to Rachel Barton. Jill Jones swam the third leg and the team was brought home by Nev Barton to set a new world mark of 4:40.35. In the 400 freestyle ladies team relay combined age 200+ Rachel and Jill were joined by Sandra Skellern and Helen Sadler to set a new European record of 4:42.00. The same 4 ladies then broke another European record in the 200 freestyle 200+ relay team recording a time of 2:06.26. Yet another European record was set by the 200+ ladies in the 400m medley team relay. Helen swam the backstroke, Jo Bolton swam breastroke, Jill swam the butterfly and Rachel completed the freestyle leg setting a new mark of 5:24.02. The same 4 ladies then went on to break the British record in the 200medley 200+ relay team coming in with a time of 2:24.38.
The Club won 27 British titles in all, 9 of which were relays; 10 silver medals of which 2 were in relays and 10 bronze medals. In the individual events Neil McKinnon was competing in the 70-74 years age group and set 2 new British records, one in the 50 Butterfly in a time of 33.93 secs and the 50 freestyle in 30.17 secs. Neil also won the 50 backstroke. Big Nev Barton age 57 won the 50m freestyle and set a new British record for the 50m breastroke with a time of 34.63 seconds. Nev also picked up a bronze in the 800m freestyle. Richard Symons in the 35-39 years category won gold in the 1500m freestyle knocking 16 seconds off his PB. Richard also won gold in the 200m backstroke, 400 Individual Medley and 800m freestyle to go with a silver in the 200m freestyle and a bronze in the 100m backstroke. Lucy Lloyd Roach, in the 25-29 age group won the 50, 100 and 200m butterfly events to go with silver in the 400 freestyle and 200 IM events. 24 year old Laura Bowden won gold in the senior age group events for 800 and 400m freestyle; silver in the 200m backstroke, 400IM and 200 freestyle. Jo Bolton competing in the 45-49 ladies age group won gold for the 100m breastroke to go with bronze in the 200 and 50m breastroke events. Rachel Barton won gold in the 50m freestyle and backstroke events in the ladies 60-64 age group. Club President John Anderson collected silver medals at the tender age of 74 for the 100m and 200m backstroke. John also won bronze in the 100 and 200m breastroke. Dave Randall bagged a brace of bronze in the 55-59 category for 100 and 200 backstroke. Paul Longland won bronze in the 30-34 years 50 freestyle and Emma Ross also collected a bronze fro her 800m freestyle swim in the 25-29 years category.
Trafford Metro were the 4th placed club in the country, which was a considerable achievement against the much bigger squad set-ups that competed at the Championships.
