With the FINA World Masters rankings for 2019 just being released it’s congratulations to Graham Powell, Malcolm Barton, Dave Wright and Colin Mayes. For the second successive year their time recorded at the English Nationals in the 240 – 279 years 400m Medley Relay was one of the ten fastest in the world.
The weekend of 18th /19th January saw our swimmers make a great record- breaking start to 2020.
18 year old Celyn Walmsley reduced her Long Course Ladies 1,500m Freestyle County record at the first gala of the 2020 Beds Championships held at Inspire.
Meanwhile Laura Smith (25), Sam Bradley (26), Jodie Armstrong (38), Kelly Cooke (43) and Malcolm Barton (64) all broke Masters & Seniors records at the South East Long Course Masters down in Crawley. Read here for a detailed report on that Masters event, including Malcolm Barton alone smashing 2 East Region and 5 Beds County records over two days.
For the sixth successive year our Men’s Team has finished in the Top 20 whilst our Ladies have leap frogged up to 48th position, having only made the top 100 for the first time in 2018. Our Men were the highest ranking in both the East Region and Beds County whilst our Ladies were the 2nd highest female team in the County behind South Beds.
Read here for a detailed report summarising everyone’s individual scores
Congratulations to everyone who has improved on their personal best times, be at our recent Team Luton Open swim meets, National Arena League fixtures or East Region championships.
Matt Wright’s winning East Region victory over 50m Backstroke was a new Beds County record whilst his 200m Butterfly swim was a 7 second improvement on the Club’s record that has stood since 2004. A review of that latest (11 November) update to the Club Records shows that between them, Jj Wilde and Rhys Davidson have also been beating times which have stood since the year they were born….. or even earlier!
Whilst it is the responsibility of swimmers or their parents to claim club records, personal improvements can be followed by logging into the Individual Best Times registers that are held for every swimmer and updated automatically on the British Swimming database.
How many personal best times might be set at our December Open Development Meet?
Team Luton’s swimmers gave an impressive display at the 2019 English National Masters Championships bringing home two gold, three silver and three bronze individual medals in addition to one silver relay medal – in “trunk splitting” fashion!
With a further 25 top ten finishes – that included four 4th and four 5th places – the thirteen swimmers who competed set numerous personal best times whilst establishing four new Beds County Masters records. That meant we finished as the 43rd highest points scoring club out of the 232 clubs that were represented, many of which had far more competitors. Read here for a full report.
We have our greatest ever representation at the English Masters & Seniors Championships being held in Sheffield at the end of the month. Fifteen members are due to compete in over 70 individual events.
Alice Pinney (aged 19), Laura Smith (25), Jodie Armstrong (37), Michelle Neal (39) & Kelly Cooke (42) – all making their National Masters debuts – will be joined by Karen MacKenzie (46) and Sharon Thompson (52).
Their male counterparts are Alex Mason (23), Sam Bradley (25), John O’Rourke (50), Dave Wright (58), Alastair Gibb (59), Graham Powell (63), Malcolm Barton (64) and Colin Mayes (64).
Four others of the Masters’ squad achieved qualifying times in their respective five year age groups but for various reasons will not be participating.
The strong presence in Sheffield is testimony to the many voluntary hours given to the Masters’ squad by coach Pauline Harrington, assisted by Jane Cattle.
A total of 25 medals were won by our Masters and Seniors at the 2019 East Region Championships. Five of our ladies made their regional debuts, all winning medals as Sharon Thompson and Kelly Cooke won their first individual titles. The squad collected a total of 9 individual and two relay golds as Sam Bradley meanwhile improved on one of his Beds County Masters records. Full report here.
Our Ladies took centre stage at the 2019 Barnet Masters Sprints Meet. They collected 17 medals, emulating their male colleagues, but had the surprise bonus of breaking a Beds County Masters relay record whilst adding to what is already the Club’s highest ever Ladies Team decathlon score. Not a bad way to mark Masters’ coach Pauline Harrington’s birthday! Read here for a full report.
Congratulations to Karen Mackenzie, Kelly Cooke, Jodie Armstrong and Michelle Neal on breaking the 160+ years 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay record in a time of 2:06.20 at the Barnet Copthall Masters Sprints Meet. All four swam 31 second splits; a great team effort.
Congratulations to club coach Dave Wright on his Bronze medal at the Swim England Open Water Championships. Dave’s medal came in his age group’s 3k swim. Alice Pinney meanwhile finished 4th in the 18-24 years’ Ladies 5k event.
Read here for further details.