The penultimate weekend of October saw a contingent of 42 Otters travel to Sheffield to take part in the National Short Course Championships. There were many excellent performances, and a full list can be found here.
It was great to see many new faces representing the club for the first time, including Catherine Demont and Jessica Safir who swam strongly in the sprint freestyle events. The club was also well represented in the youngest age group by Alex Fraser and Dontony Gill-Nasadi. Special mention also goes to Aeron Brown who managed to fit a number of speedy swims in between assisting Steve Bratt on the coaching side.
Many swimmers had very busy schedules indeed, including Nico Barber who swam all the freestyle events bar the 1500, picking up a silver in the 800m and a bronze in the 400m. Craig Gillespie showed his versatility by swimming a range of events in the extremely tough 25-29 year age group, picking up a bronze in the 200IM. Lex Higlett also had great freestyle swims in the women’s 30-34 year age group, including a gold in the 200 and a bronze in the 400.
Both Dave Warren and Gina Hobson came back with a haul of medals. Dave won 10 individual medals(!), including seven golds. Gina won nine individual medals, including an excellent gold in the 100 free.
In the older age groups we also did very well, in spite of not having some of the usual 50-60 year-olds. In the women’s events, Liz Shaw swam a PB in the 200 breast, and there were solid swims from Martha Dean and Lesley Davies.
We were very strong in the 240+ relays with two golds and one bronze for the men, and a gold in the mixed 4x100 and 4x200 freestyle relays. In the men's 280+ relays we were virtually unassailable with three gold and two silver medals.
Individual male performances of note include Ted Evans, who swam in four events and won gold in all of them, just missing a couple of GB records. Roger Lloyd-Mostyn with a gold and three silvers out of five events, and Mike Wake's silver and four bronzes from six swims were also very impressive, especially since they are both at the top end of their age group. However, they were overshadowed by Derek Parr, who swam in three relays and nine individual events and managed not only to win six gold and three silver individual medals, but to take out the GB records in the 50 and 200 fly!
Well done everyone!