Dolphin Masters Lead the Way

Event: British Masters and Senior Age Group Championships (50m) 2011 Venue: John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds Date: 17th to 19th June 2011

This year’s British Masters and Senior Age Group Championships (50m) took place at the John Charles Centre for Sport, Leeds. Each year the competition attracts swimmers aged 19 to over 90 from throughout the country, and as with previous years, Swindon Dolphin’s presence underlined its commitment to encouraging lifelong participation in the sport.

Glenys France’s focus was on distance freestyle events which paid dividends as she took a hard earned gold in the 1500m and 400m events and bronze in her 200m swim. France also won a further two bronze in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Jose Adam, who this year moved up into the 70-74 years age group took on the challenge of the 100m butterfly and was rewarded with a silver to add to the two bronze won in the 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley.

John Drake and Anthony Clark each won a full set of gold, silver and bronze medals. Drake’s awards came from his three butterfly events and narrowly missed a further bronze in the 400m freestyle. Clark struck gold for the second year running in his favoured 200m breaststroke, won bronze in the 100m event, and an impressive display of fitness saw him through his first ever attempt at a long course 400m individual medley to take silver.

Kath Baker had her sights firmly set on breaking the senior age group British record in the 200m individual medley and having gone under the required 2:30.05 mark in Sheffield a few weeks earlier, only had to repeat the feat at a masters meet for the record to stand. However, with the event taking place in the evening session, over twelve hours after the first warm-up of the day, this was always going to be a tough task and despite a gutsy performance fell short of the mark by just under four tenths of a second. Baker nonetheless enjoyed a fruitful and productive weekend and took home four gold, one silver and one bronze medal.