29 October 13
24 perfectly fit and trained swimmers, ranging in age from 20 to 76 made the trip to Yorkshire for the Annual British Gas ASA National Masters and Senior Age Group Championships.
They returned with great memories and stories about the event, but more importantly 41 medals and nine British Records.
Star of the event was Golden Girl, Rachel Barton, she returned with 5 British Records from 6 events and only narrowly missed out on her 6th record in the 50 metres Butterfly. A brace of medals in relay teams completed a satisfyingly large haul for the 65 year old who continues to be an inspiration to the younger swimmers in the team.
Lucy Lloyd-Roach is rapidly becoming the butterfly darling of the Ladies team. She came back with 3 Golds in her events and only just missed out on a British Record in the most gruelling event of 200 metres Butterfly.
Other notable medal winners on the ladies team were Helen Sadler, who overcame her disappointment in the freestyle events to take Gold in her favoured 50 metres backstroke event.
The stamina award of the team has to go to Laura Bowden who won the arduous 1500 freestyle in the 25 -29yrs Age group and also picked up a bronze in the shorter 400 metre event. Along the way she competed in the 800 freestyle and was placed a plucky 4th place, a mere 4 seconds off a silver medal after a 32 length swim.
Jo Bolton collected a bronze for her 100metre breaststroke and in the senior age group division 20 year old Louisa Zolkiewski bagged a silver for her 50 metre backstroke swim. There were also some excellent performances from our other ladies including Becky Kirby, Rachael Gorman, Tracie Gorst, Lynn Page and Kath Thomas.
The Men's team whilst not having the stand out star like the ladies performed excellently. Seven of the guys came back with individual medals. Neil MacKinnon being the most prolific with 3 golds and 1 each of silver and bronze.
Alec Johnson is the 'flyer’ in the Men's team with 2 golds in the short sprint Butterfly races. He opted out of the 200 Butterfly to conserve energy for the 4 x 200 freestyle relay team, which came home with a British Record. He was joined in this long relay event by Neville Barton, Rob Arnold and Richard Symons who had already won gold with a performance that shattered the 18 minute mark in the 1500 metre swim earlier in the meet. Neville Barton shocked everyone in his age group with a fantastic gold in his favourite 50 metres breaststroke and creditable silver in the 100 metre freestyle. This is his last year in this age group (55 -59) and great things are expected next year.
Evergreen John Anderson, our Club President, came home with 4 medals and was pleased with some testing swims. The other medal winner was David Randal who shunned his Open Water activities for a place on the podium in the 1500 race. No spring chicken, Dave is looking forward to a winter of hard training before he turns sixty next year. He intends to attempt The English Channel again after his disappointment only 3 years ago.
The relay teams, although fewer entered this year performed at a high level with 9 medals coming back from 10 teams. Of these 5 were gold with the “Old Guys Rule”
Team of Alec Johnson, Ashley McEwen, Neville Barton and Neil MacKinnon, leading the way and showing the young ones how to do it. Collectively their ages add up to a magnificent 240 years, they collected 2 golds and a silver medal for their efforts. Their freestyle team, swimming at 4 x 50 metres and 4 x 100 metres outperform any other team in the country. Not only did they grab gold medals but also broke British Records in both events.
Other swimmers on the Men's team who not only swam with note, but supported their team mates were, Phil Eccles, Paul Barnard, Mike Boyle, Neil Hitchman, Joe Keeley, Henry Croker, Johnny Giles, club head coach Craig Ward and club chairman Bob Bolton. It was also great to have support from a couple of non-competing Masters in the form of Jill Jones and Alan Rowson.
The Trafford team as usual showed great team spirit and proved great things can be achieved by a group of swimmers that train and socialise together.
Roll on next year.
The results have been included in the Masters’ decathlon. Helen Sadler has moved up to 12th in the ladies and Alec Johnson has moved up to 17th in the mens. Both ladies and men’s teams are now in the top ten.
Full results link:
http://www.swimmingresults.org.uk/masters/results/2013/asama13/
