Swim England Masters National Winter Championship 2025
The 2025 Swim England National Masters short course championships took place at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield between 24th and 26th October.
Events ranged between freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke over distances between 50m and 1500m. Individual medley events and team relays completed the programme of events. Results in Masters events are grouped into age groups. The age groups were 18 to 24, 25 to 29 and then every 5 years with the oldest swimmers being in their 80’s. Scores of British, European and World records were broken over the course of the weekend.
From a larger group of West Norfolk Swimming Club Masters swimmers who qualified for the event, 13 were able to attend and compete at the event. The swimmers were supported by two trained officials from the club, Shelley Yeaman and Nick Jones who joined peers from around the country in officiating at the meet.
The 'purple army' athletes who travelled to South Yorkshire to compete were;
Rhys Burrell 18, Harvey Isle 20, Robert Addis 21, Libby Collins 19, Abigail Nicholson 19, Nathan Wells 27, Cara Rose 30, Lucy Rodwell 39, Sian Wells 43, Hayley Turner 53, Iain Taylor 53, Tracy Dodds 55 and Cheryl Rose 59.
Everyone among the team revelled in the festival like atmosphere of the venue and swam their hearts out over three days of racing. The hard work and training invested by them ahead of the competition paid dividend with many personal best times achieved. The top 10 finishers were;
Nathan Wells 25/29 won a silver medal in the 100m individual medley and gained an east region record in a time of 57.65.He also came in 4th place in the 50m backstroke and 5th in the 200m individual medley , gaining another east region record with a time of 2.09.32!
Lucy Rodwell 35/39 came 4th in the 50m backstroke and 7th in the 50m butterfly.
Harvey Isle 18/24 came 8th in the 200m individual medley and 10th in the 200m freestyle.
Hayley Turner 50/54 came 9th in both the 50m and 100m freestyle events.
West Norfolk Swimming Club is a competitive swimming club offering opportunities to train and compete to competent swimmers aged between 8 and 108. Please go to www.westnorfolksc.co.uk to enquire about membership