The last weekend of October saw the annual "Masters Short Course Nationals" held at Ponds Forge National Sports Centre in Sheffield, where 29 Otters competed and returned with an impressive total of 68 medals (17 Gold, 27 Silver, 24 Bronze).
Not only did the team break 35 Club Records (14 Men, 9 Women, 9 Relays), but 2 British Records were broken by Peter Dixon in the same race! He achieved record-breaking 800m and 1500m times for the Men's 50-54 age group in the 1500m Freestyle event with times of 9:11.82 and 17:19.97 respectively.
Our Ladies 160-199 4 x 100m Freestyle team broke the existing European Record of 4:12.06 by over two seconds with a time of 4:09.99 but sadly they were just edged out by Teddington by 0.11 seconds who now hold that record. Well done and commiserations to Gina Hobson (1:00.73), Emma Shkurka (1:03.74), Hayley Davis (1:01.51 and Jane McMemeny (1:04.01) for that result.
The team’s total of 68 medals were made up of 53 individual races and 15 relays. The individual medals were won by 17 of our swimmers and notable mentions go to the following four individual gold medal winners:
Derek Parr (Men's 70-74): 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle, 100m Burterfly, 200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley.
Peter Dixon (Men's 50-54): 200m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle , 1500m Freestyle.
Roger Lloyd-Mostyn (Men's 75-79): 100m Butterfly.
Hayley Davis (Women's 30-34): 200m Butterfly.
And the following six relay teams won national titles:
120-159 Women’s 200m Freestyle: 1:56.43 Gina Hobson, Alice Dinsdale-Young, Camille Vrain, Sarah-Jane Law
160-199 Mixed 800m Freestyle: 9:02.26 Nico Barber, Chris Morgan, Jane McMenemey, Hayley Davis
280-319 Men's 200m Freestyle: 2:35.13 Roger Lloyd-Mostyn, Tony Ray, Peter Rae, Roger Sharpley
280-319 Men's 400m Freestyle: 5:27.75 Derek Parr, Roger Lloyd-Mostyn, Roger Sharpley, Peter Rae
280-319 Men's 200m Medley: 2:50.10 Bob Thomas, Roger Sharpley, Derek Parr, Peter Rae
280-319 Men's 400m Medley: 6:54.58 Bob Thomas, Roger Sharpley, Derek Parr, Roger Lloyd-Mostyn
Overall, many swimmers recorded personal best times and there were 62 individual swims faster than their times entered (based upon personal bests from the previous two years) so we can celebrate a great success all round!
Click here for the full list of Otter results from the swimming.org website.
You can also click here find the full list of Club Records through the Records & Hall of Fame page on our web site.