A small team of five Masters travelled to Newmarket on Saturday 5th October for the East Region Masters and Senior Swimming Championships, they managed to bring home a stunning 18 medals and break 4 East Region Masters Records. The Championships brings swimmers together from Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk plus this year saw a team of swimmers travel from Spain especially for the event.
Annette Thatcher (61) led the way with a stunning 5 Gold Medals from her individual swims as well as a relay Gold and Bronze and if all that was not enough she broke 4 East Region Records along the way, to put her performance into context some of her results would have placed her first in age groups 10 years below her.
The evergreen Dave Pirrie (56) was the lone male swimmer but he was unbeaten all day bringing home five gold medals in the 100 Individual Medley, 50m Butterfly, 50m Freestyle and the 50m and 100m Breastroke, Dave is beating his personal best times that he set as a teenager.
The younger ladies contingent was led by improving Rachel Barber (25) who won Gold medals in the 100m Individual Medley, 50m Backstroke, 100m Freestyle and a Silver in the 50m Freestyle.
Hemel had two Senior Swimmers attend the championships for the first time, Club Captain Kira Doyle won Silver medals in the 50m Freestyle and 100m Breastroke as well as a Bronze in the 100m Freestyle plus a couple of other top 4 finishes. Melissa Brandon travelled from Nottingham where she has just started her degree studies and she produced a top 4 finish in the 50 Backstroke as well as two top 6 finishes.
The ladies team of Annette, Rachel, Kira and Melissa capped off a busy day with Gold in the 120+ (combined ages) Freestyle Relay and Silver in the Medley Relay.
Thanks also go to Mark Horrod who made the journey to Newmarket to officiate.
{phocagallery view=switchimage|basicimageid=1483|switchheight=428|switchwidth=640|switchfixedsize=0}
{phocagallery view=switchimage|basicimageid=1484|switchheight=428|switchwidth=640|switchfixedsize=0}