Salisbury Stingrays

This was the long course championships held at the Swansea pool which is an 8 lane 50m pool with a 4 lane 25m warm up pool. It also has ~20 rows of banked seats along the length of one side of the pool with straight access to the pool side. A real boon to the swimmers as there were over 600 entries and no shortage of places to sit. It took place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (13-15 June).

• On the Saturday night just after midnight, some ‘kind’ man decided to smoke a cigarette in his room. So everyone was awakened by an incredibly effective fire alarm and we all gathered  outside in the car park. There were a lot of swimmers in the hotel from  Basingstoke Bluefins club. A few of their women had onesy night attire with ‘Bluefins on tour’ on the back. Takes club kit to a new level  !!
  I understand the smoking offender will get a large fine which will  cover the fire brigade callout and the specialist team to clean the room.   As it was Premier Inn we should get our money back for that disturbed night.
• Approximately 14 relay teams  got disqualified before they even got on the starting blocks. I don’t have chapter and verse on this but my understanding from others is that a new rule has just come in concerning relays and this was the first meet to      implement the rule.
  If a relay team has a member who is not swimming an individual race, that swimmer must register themselves for the competition. As they will not be paying any money (its done as a team) it is not clear how that is done. A lot of teams didn’t know about this new rule and others who did, thought they had done the right thing only to find they hadn’t. Some people had travelled a long way to find they had no swim, so there were a lot of unhappy people. It seems as if the advertising of the new rule has not been great and maybe it would have been better public relations to be more lenient in these circumstances.

There is a picture of Ron with a large group of Masters swimmers at Five Rivers pool, in the May 22nd edition of the Salisbury Journal. There is also a report of the event. He was given a very tasty cake and a signed picture of the Masters swimmers in the club whom he has coached for many years. He also had presents from both the club and the grateful masters swimmers.

I understand he got thrown in at the end ! Perhaps he will get his revenge by giving us extra hard training.

1 April 2014

The ASA is delighted to announce that Sharon Lock will be joining the association in June as the first ever Masters Swimming Officer.

A committed and popular Masters competitor Sharon won through against an exceptionally high quality field of candidates and can’t wait to take up the challenge

Commenting on her appointment Sharon said
“I would like as many people as possible to share in the enjoyment and enthusiasm I feel for Masters swimming, whilst providing a quality service for all Masters swimmers and helping the Masters community to take ownership for the future of Masters. I am excited and proud to take up this role, and look forward to a very busy but thrilling future.”

February 2014

John Harrison (Godalming Swim Club)  has just moved up to the 100-104 age group and took part in the SE region long course meet swimming.

In the 50m freestyle his time of 1m 31.19s broke the previous world record of 1m 40.46s which had stood since 1994.

In the same meet he broke the 100m freestyle world record with a swim of 3m 23.1s. This was originally last set in 1994 again with a time of 4m 05.28s.

He had a busy weekend in which he also took the 50m backstroke world record with a time of 1m 32.2s. His margin was bigger as the previous record was 1m 50.73.

All thee records which he broke had been held by Tom Lane of the USA.

It clearly does you good to keep the training going !