The weekend of Saturday the 5th of March and Sunday the 6th of March 2022, two of our Masters’ swimmers crossed the county borders, one into Bracknell, Berkshire to compete at the Bracknell and Wokingham Swimming Clubs Masters Meet held at Bracknell Leisure Centre and the other in to Wales to compete at the Swim Wales Masters Long Course Championships 2022 held at the Wales National Pool.
In Bracknell on the Saturday, Dolphins Masters’ swimmer Liz Woolner achieved Swim England East region records in the 50 & 100 m butterfly, 50 m backstroke and in the 100m individual medley, also scooping up golds in all 4 of these events, as well as breaking the ER records. To top that, Liz was also awarded a gold medal in the 50 m breastroke. 200 Master swimmers took part in the competition with Liz attaining second place in the top swimmer award, with a narrow margin of just 10 points between herself scoring 3210 points and the first place winner with a score of 3220. The third place winner scored 2915 so a close run battle for first and second place, which involved swimmers from across the country.
Whilst Liz was swimming to victory in Berkshire, Ian Murray was competing in Wales at the Swim Wales masters long course championships doing exactly the same. Ian was triumphant in the 100m freestyle event winning a gold and narrowly missing the Beds County record by 0.26. The following day of the championships Ian went on to win the 200m and 800 m freestyle bagging more gold medals and achieving Beds county records at the same time even managing to break the Beds county masters record on his 400 m split time within the 800 m event. Notwithstanding Ian’s hard work in the pool, his medal haul of three gold medals and breaking three Bedfordshire county records, he even found time to don, as he put it, “…a nice Swim Wales officials’ polo shirt” and officiated as well at one of the sessions.
Brilliant performances by Liz and Ian, record breaking, gold medallists; as Flitwick Dolphins Masters’ swimmers certainly exemplary role models for the club’s swimmers.