Great Britain Masters Swimming Championships 2011
Gloucester Masters swimmers excelled at the Great Britain Masters Championships staged at the John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds at the weekend. Supported by coaches Kris Morris and Adam Naylor the 11 strong team comprised 6 men and 5 ladies. With 47 events contested, and a medal haul of 26, the strength and depth of the competitive ranks within the Club is considerable.
The highest accolade is attributed to the men’s 200+ years freestyle team for breaking the World record* in the 400m freestyle relay in which John Anderson, Stephen Weston, Colin Stephenson and Peter Smith set a new mark of 4 minutes 09.97 seconds.
The 200+ years 400m medley relay team of Katie Nimmo (backstroke), Tony Cherrington (breaststroke), Sandy Jones (butterfly) and Colin Stephenson (freestyle), impressed by breaking the European record with their time of 4 minutes 28.61 seconds.
There was further success for Katie Nimmo (backstroke), Clare Turner (breaststroke), John Anderson (butterfly) and Colin Stephenson (freestyle), in the 160+ years 200m mixed medley clinching gold with a winning time of 2 minutes 11.48 seconds.
In the individual events, 4 gold medals were awarded to Katie Nimmo for winning the 200m freestyle, 50 and 100m butterfly and 50m backstroke competing in the 35-39 age group. Nimmo also collected a silver medal in the 100m freestyle.
Butterfly specialist, Sandy Jones, challenged all three distances and secured gold in the 100 and 200m and bronze in the 50 meters.
Colin Stephenson fought off stiff competition in the 50, 100 and 200m freestyle to claim second place in each. Likewise Gill Ferris battled her way through the field to win silver in the 50m butterfly and 200m breaststroke and bronze in the 50 and 100m backstroke.
In the 50 and 100m backstroke in the 65-69 age group, Tony Cherrington swept up silver medals to add to his bronze from the 50m freestyle.
John Anderson and Esther Murray each won silver and bronze in their respective events. Anderson took silver in the 100m butterfly with 77.70 seconds and bronze in the 50metres with 31.29 seconds. Murray was second in the 200m freestyle and delighted to have beaten her best time of 10 years, in securing bronze in the 400m freestyle.
Competing in the 55-59 age group, Stephen Weston hung on hard to snatch silver in the fiercely competitive 50m freestyle.
Esther Murray
21 June 2011
* Sadly the World Record wasn’t ratified, as it had been broken a few weeks earlier in a faster time, however it was a new British Record.