We kicked the year off in style, at the Northwest Masters Distance Meet, Wigan. 8 Trafford swimmers took part and they returned with 16 medals, 8 of which were gold.
Yorkshire Masters, Leeds. 9 swimmers made it around the road closures. Neil, Rachel and Nev brought home 11 gold medals between them with a further 11 medals achieved by the rest of team.
British Masters Long course Championships, Manchester
We had 15 swimmers representing Trafford. The team came back with 11 golds, 8 silvers and 7 bronze medals.
Emma Gage in her first National Masters meet achieved an incredible 7 golds out of her 8 swims and was tantalizingly close to some British records. An exciting start to her Masters swimming career. There is definitely more to come from her!
Lucy Lloyd-Roach broke 2 British records in the 100 and 200 fly
The NW Masters sprints, Blackpool. We had 23 swimmers competing and they came back with 50 gold medals from their swims. All but one swimmer from Trafford achieved at least a silver medal. The one exception shall remain nameless but he only just missed out by 13 hundreths and got a bronze.
World Masters Swimming Championships, Kazan. Following her phenomenal swims to date this year, we were all expecting big things from Trafford’s, sole representative, Emma Gage.
Emma returned with 3 gold and 2 silver medals. Breaking 3 British Records and 2 World records along the way. An amazing achievement. Well done, Emma!
With the summer brings the Open Water season:
Bob Bolton and Jane McCormick set up Open Swim UK at Sale Water Park and part of this was the inaugural Greater Manchester Open Water Festival. 4 medals were won by Trafford swimmers, Mike Boyle for the guys with a creditable silver. Golds for the girls by, Helen, Natalie and Sandra.
2 other members to swim Open Water were the hard core duo of David Randall and Niki Williams. David swam in 5 events of 3k or more and Niki achieved won the BLDSA races in Lakes Bala, Coniston and Derwent Water. Well done guys.
ASA Masters Open Water Championships, Rother Valley
We had 3 swimmers from Trafford who all put in good performances.
In the 1.5k Rachel O’Gorman was our sole representative. This was her first open water swim and she came 2nd in her age group in a time of 21.50.
In the 3k we had 2 representatives:
Ian Griffiths who came 7th in his age group in a time of 57.28, which was faster than last year! Great to see all the training is paying off!
Lucy Lloyd-Roach came 4th overall and 1st in her age group. Finishing in a time of 42.59
In October, the biggest open water challenge of all was attempted by 3 of our Trafford swimmers, Lucy Lloyd-Roach, Natalie Massey and Jane McCormick were members of a triple crossing 6 person relay crossing of the Channel. They were supposed to attempt the swim in August but the weather was awful so it was postponed. All seemed to be going well as their first crossing from England to France set the fastest time of 2015. However tides and currents were against them and they had to abandon the attempt. They are planning a rerun in 2017.
Cheshire Sprints, Macclesfield. 28 swimmers competed and everyone brought back a medal and the club brought back the Top team
ASA Nationals, Sheffield.
23 swimmers competed and a great weekend was had by all. Our overall tally was 19 individual golds and 5 relay golds.
Emma Gage added 2 further individual records to her tally. A British record in the 50 back and a European record in the 100 fly.
We also had a European record in the 4x100 120+ freestyle relay. The team was Lucy, Helen, Laura and Emma.
Paul Barnard how an outstanding meet. He came 1st in 200 and 800 freestyle. Paul has been trying to break the 2 minute barrier for the last 3 years, being frustratingly close each time. This year he smashed it with a 1:58. He also smashed his PB in the 800 as well in 8:51.55 and went a 51. In his 100 free!
As is tradition, the year was brought to a close with the Masters Inter-County gala, Leeds. 16 swimmers were selected to represent Cheshire. This would have been more except that it clashed with the Arena League and some key members of the team had been selected to represent TMBSC.
Fina World Rankings 2015
Short course
Emma Gage
50 Free (1)
100 freestyle (1)
100 IM (7)
200 back (8)
50 fly (3)
100 fly (3)
50 back (6)
Lucy Lloyd-Roach
100 fly (6)
200 fly (3)
Rachel Barton
50 free (6)
100 free (6)
400 freestyle (10)
50 Back (3)
100 Back (6)
50 fly (9)
Nev Barton
50 breaststroke (10)
Relay teams
200 120+ women’s relay team of Lucy, Laura Bowden, Helen Sadler, and Emma had the 2nd fastest time
120+ 400 freestyle Lucy, Laura, Helen, Emma had the fastest time from last year!
Mixed 240+ 200 freestyle team Neil Mackinnon, Nev, Rachel, and Helen had the 5th fastest time
Long course
Emma
50 freestyle (1)
100 free (1)
200 freestyle (7)
400 freestyle (8)
50 fly (1)
100 fly (2)
200 IM (5)
400 IM (6)
Lucy
400 freestyle (3)
100 butterfly (2)
200 butterfly (1)
Relay teams
120+ 200 freestyle relay – Emma, Craig Ward, Lucy, and Alec Johnson had the 8th fastest time
120+ 200 freestyle relay – Emma, Bec Henley, Laura and Lucy had the 3rd fastest time
Well done everyone a great year! Here’s looking forward to 2016!
