Stronger, Harder, Better, Faster!!

Dolphin Legends March on at Round 1 of Wiltshire Masters Championships

Saturday 23rd March saw Round 1 of the 2018 Wiltshire Masters Championships kick off at the Link Centre, Swindon with Masters swimmers from all over Wiltshire competing in both individual & relay events. After securing the Wiltshire Masters Top Team Trophy in dominating style in 2018, the Dolphins Legend Squad were keen to carry on where they had left off.

This block saw Swindon Dolphin Masters Legend Squad field a team of 21 swimmers to compete in the 50m Backstroke, 100m Fly, 25m Breaststroke & 100m Freestyle events together with a total of 7 relays. As always The Legend Squad put on an outstanding display of team spirit and delivered great individual & team performances.

The Dolphin legend swimmers secured 5 County Masters Records and a massive medal haul in the individual events, taking home 21 golds, 15 silvers and 10 bronze medals, together with 6 Golds, 5 Silvers & 2 bronze medals in the team events. Dolphin Legend Teams won 6 out of 7 relay events; taking 1st & 2nd place in 4 of those, under lining the strength & depth of the ‘Legend Squad’.

Individual county age group records went to Nikki Harris in the Ladies 50-54yrs 50m Backstroke in 33.75 and Graham Perry in the Men’s 60-64 yrs 25m Breaststroke, 18.46 and 50 Backstroke 36.87.

The remaining two county records came in the relay events. The first, in the 200+ years 4x25m Mixed Medley Relay with Nikki Harris, Nigel Masters leading off on the Back & Breaststroke legs, with Stuart Gibbs & Alison Nye maintaining the teams’ dominance on the Fly & Freestyle to take the honours in 1.01.99.

The second came in the Women’s 160-199 years 4x25m Freestyle Relay with Sarah Forbes, Claire Church, Louise Audis & Nikki Harris demonstrating an unbeatable display of team racing to break the record set by The Dolphin Legends last year in 56.52.

There were notable performances from Legend Squad debutants, Heather Exley who secured 2 silver medals in her first competitive competition for Dolphin Legend Squad and ‘Proto-Legend’ Matt Rose who delivered an impressive effort of 56.79 in the Men’s 25-29yrs100m Freestyle to take Gold and place second overall behind National Masters Freestyle Champion Liam Jefferies whose 54.75 claimed the 18-24yrs title.

Tamara Turchet stepped up and delivered a terrific effort in the less favoured 100m Butterfly event, taking Silver in the Ladies 45-49yrs age group for her outstanding efforts. The ever developing Charlie Forrest whose continued hard work in training over the year rewarded him with some substantial life time best swims, most notably taking 4 seconds of his 100m Freestyle time from last year.

Training partners Tamara Turchet & Michelle Morgan Smith, as in training, had a close fought battle in the Ladies 45-49yrs 100m Freestyle. With both Ladies delivering great best performances in the event, but with Morgan-Smith sneaking the victory by 0.5 secs. Some fine racing resulted in some exciting finishes & final results. This was demonstrated well in the Ladies 25m Breaststroke, where the top 3 competitors were split by 0.12 seconds, highlighting the fine margins between winning & losing, independent of the level of competition and the need to focus and work on race skills whenever possible.

The great team effort & performance from all those who participated saw the team secure a fantastic 138 points to lead the points table by 59 points from 2nd placed Chippenham on 79 points. The final team points for the evening after the 15 events were 1) Swindon Dolphin 138 2) Chippenham 79 3) Warminster 65 4) Salisbury 51 5) SAMS 29 for the top 5.

Thank you to all the officials & young volunteers for all their efforts, with special thanks to Teresa Masters & Junior Girls Captain, Aimee Masters as Legend Squad Team Managers, Tony Stratford & Paula Rutherford for a sterling effort on announcing & medal distribution.

After such a fantastic first round effort and result, we now need to look towards Round 2 on June 1st at Trowbridge and build on the successes from this round to work towards reclaiming the Top Team Trophy for 2019.