Six of the Club’s swimmers competed at the British and or English Summer Championships held respectively in Glasgow (23rd – 28th July) and Sheffield (31st July – 4th August). Their 2018/19 season ended with various finals and new Club age group records.
Celyn Walmsley, Rhys Davidson and Jj Wilde all made finals but in literally the very last event over the two competitions, Matt Wright claimed a silver medal for Team Luton in the 19 years & over 400m Freestyle with a blistering final 50m. Read here for a full report.
L-R: Matt Wright, Chantal Smith, Celyn Walmsley, Chiara Rogers, Rhys Davidson & JJ Wilde
Four of our Performance swimmers rounded off their 2018/19 competitive season in spectacular style, registering personal best times whilst claiming two gold, three silver and one bronze medal at the Swim Wales Summer Open held in Swansea. Full report and further photos here.
Multiple medal winners: JJ Wilde, Anna Fallon & Menna Walmsley
Congratulations to Abbie Barnwell, coming 4th in the Girls 16 years’ Swim England 5k Open Water.
Abbie with coach Rikki Morris
Abbie, together with Chantal Smith, qualified for the Swim England National Open Water Championships by virtue of them winning their respective age group’s 5k events at the East Region’s 2019 Open Water Championships.
In total seven of the Club’s swimmers took part in the East Region event with everyone (Lauren Donnelly, Lauren Hooker, Lyla Howard, Zara Fallon and Dave Wright) winning regional or County medals. Full report here.
Our junior swimmers finished in second place in Division 2 of the 2019 M11 League to gain promotion to Division 1 for 2020.
In a closely fought Round 3 we ended up with 170 gala points to finish behind Camden Swiss “B” team. Only 11 points split the clubs finishing in 2nd to 6th place (Team Luton, Epping Forest, Halstead, Borough of Harrow and Enfield Swim Squad). Read here for more details and dates for 2020.
It is a busy few weeks for our Performance swimmers competing at the British Championships, English Nationals, National Open Water and the Swim Wales Summer Open.
L-R: Matt Wright, Chantal Smith, Celyn Walmsley, Chiara Rogers, Rhys Davidson & JJ Wilde.
First off it’s the British summer Championships up in Glasgow (23rd to 28th July) where Rhys, JJ and Celyn will be swimming for Team Luton and Matt and Chantal for Bath University and Sterling University. To watch the swimmers “live” each day click on the Youtube.com link.
At the English Summer Meet (31st July – 4th August) in Sheffield Rhys, Celyn, Matt and Chiara will all be swimming for Team Luton. This should also be live streamed from the Swim England website.
Download this Summer Meets Schedule to see on which day each of our swimmers are competing.
The Welsh Open meet (29th July – 2nd August) sees JJ, Menna Walmsley, Anna and Zara Fallon competing over in Swansea.
Chantal and Abbie Barnwell have also both qualified to swim on Monday 5th August at the National Open Water Championships, following their swims at the weekend’s East Region Open Water championships.
There will be a reduced training session schedule over the summer holidays – NO Wednesday evening training at Inspire and NO early morning sessions. (The Masters & Senior Age Group squad – who have a different competitive season- will train as normal).
Our swimmers demonstrated their prowess and versatility at the 2019 GB Masters, winning five medals – three of them in their respective age group’s 400m IM.
John O’Rourke, Karen MacKenzie & Malcolm Barton
Malcolm Barton hung on to snatch the Silver whilst both Karen MacKenzie and John O’Rourke won Bronze medals. Malcolm and John were double medalists. After 14 years of Masters’ competitions, it was the first time that John had ever won medals on the National stage. Karen meanwhile set two new Beds County Masters records. Read here for a full report.
Congratulations to Graham Powell, Malcolm Barton, Dave Wright and Colin Mayes.
Their time of 5:10.46 in the 240-279 years 4 x 100m Medley relay at the National Masters last year has been confirmed as the 7th fastest recorded in the world last year.
Colin Mayes, Dave Wright, Malcolm Barton & Graham Powell
Sharon Thompson, Karen Mackenzie and Alex Mason demonstrated last weekend that whether you are a Masters or a Seniors swimmer one is never too old to improve. Read here for a report on the achievements at the Bracknell and Essex County Masters meets.
Our Masters’ competitors at Bracknell – Sharon, John & Karen.
