Cally Masters Retain The Middlesex Crown!

Racing kicked off in the morning with the 200 m individual medley (IM), 100 m breaststroke, 50 m butterfly, 50 m backstroke, and 100 m freestyle, all of which had an incredibly strong showing from Cally. We finished the morning with the 4 x 50 m medley relays, where we had a whopping 15 teams. After a quick lunch we were back in the pool, this time for 100 m IM, 100 m backstroke, 50 m freestyle, 50 m breaststroke, and 100 m butterfly. Our 15 relay teams were then back on the blocks for the 4 x 50 m freestyle relays. With so many excellent races across the day it’s impossible to summarise how amazing everyone was. In total (by my counting) Cally members swam an incredible 117 individual races, and 30 relays. All these races resulted in:

• Individual Gold medals for: Flora, Cat, Jorge, Steve, Jo, Sara, Cath, Paul, Cassandra, Rachael, Yael, Cameron, Jon, Beth, Tanya, Yoel.
• Individual Silver medals for: Beth, Susan, Yoel, Steve, Cassandra, Abigail, Debbie, Honor, Ella, Jo, Jorge, Cat, Tom, Charles, Flora, Mari, Will.
• Individual Bronze medals for: Mari, Erin, Claire, Charles, Jon, Susan, Will, Steve, Ella, Abigail, Debbie, Yoel, Jo, Honor, Rachael, Tanya, Paul.
• Relay golds for our W100, W120, W240, M72, M160, X100, X120, X240 and X200 teams
• Relay silvers for our M120, M200, X72, X160, W160 and X120 teams 
• Relay bronze for our W160, W200, M200 and X240 teams.
• Plenty more inspiring races, including comeback queen Nirmal who absolutely smashed her afternoon relay, Brandon who swam an amazing number of individual races, and Abigail who swam more butterfly than she ever imagined she could.

Congratulations to everyone who achieved their personal goals on Sunday, whether that was diving in or tumbling for the first time in a race, getting an age-group PB, an all-time PB, or simply being back and enjoying racing again. 

Sara Medals at the Nationals!

At the recent  National Masters Swimming Championship in Sheffield, Cally Masters’ Sara Perry won the bronze medal in the 200 metres breaststroke in the 65-70 age group.  Having recovered from a bad bout of Covid just 6 weeks prior to the event, Sara was delighted with her performance.

Sara retired from the NHS in 2019 and was looking forward to spending a lot more time in the pool.  However, the pandemic brought a swift end to her plans, and she returned to work to help with the crisis.  She continues to work for the NHS in mental health.

Cally’s only other competitor at the nationals was Debbie Croydon who swam a PB in the 50m free.

Cally Masters Win Middlesex Crown!

After a 3 year hiatus, Cally Masters won the Middlesex County Championship at Barnet Copthall last weekend.  The win was decisive.  Cally scored a massive 1003 points, compared to second placed Camden Swiss Cottages’ score of 742 points.  The women’s team were also overall winners by a huge margin.

We had 13 individual gold medal winners (many winning multiple golds) and also won golds in numerous relays.

Everyone who swum contributed to Cally’s overall success and this really is an event to target for us all.

Congratulations to all who swum!

Here is the report in the Islington Gazette.

Training Update

We are delighted to have our full range of sessions back and our swimmers are clearly enjoying the sets and the company of our fellow swimmers!

Brandon at the Swim Serpentine Festival

Congratulations to Brandon High, a Cally Masters swimmer, who took part in the Swim Serpentine Festival in Hyde Park last weekend. Brandon, who is disabled, swam a mile loop of the Serpentine in just over an hour.

Brandon was swimming to raise funds for Pimlico Penguins, a swimming club for people with physical and learning disabilities in Westminster. The club is run by volunteers and is dependent on donations for things like bespoke swimming aids and accessible transport to the pool.

So far Brandon and a fellow swimmer have raised 90% of their £1500 target. If you have not donated already, you can do so here.

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The course and Brandon with his medal

Congratulations Brandon!

Training!

We are delighted to have some of our training sessions back. We are hoping that we will have our full timetable of sessions back in the near future!

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Fix Splash Races

During the summer months, many Cally Masters took part in the Fix Splash Open Water Challenges hosted by Capital Tri at the West Reservoir, Stoke Newington. This reservoir is the outdoor swimming venue of choice for London’s “hardcore athletes” to quote the Evening Standard.

Sunday 29th September was the final event of the season. It was a dark, drizzly and windy day, with a water temperature of just 15 degrees. Not surprisingly, there were fewer Cally swimmers than at the previous events. But four intrepid Cally swimmers did line up for the 7.30am start. And they made sure that it was worth it!

All four Cally swimmers opted for the longer 3K event. Katie Curd was the fastest female swimmer and the fastest overall swimmer with an astonishing time of 40:11.
Closely following was Laura Coulier, who was 3rd female swimmer with a time of 46:09. Not far behind were Steve Lorimer, 9th male swimmer with a time of 49:52, and Bethan Cash, 8th female swimmer with a time of 52:31

Well done everybody; roll on next summer!

Lake Zurich Marathon Swim

The Lake Zurich Marathon Swim is held annually and is run by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team. Solo and relay teams start in the morning from Rapperswil towards the south end of the lake and swim all the way up to Zurich at the north end. It is a distance of 26km and swimmers take up to 12 hours to complete the distance.

It is a beautiful swim in lovely clean water and spectacular surroundings. We would massively recommend it to other Cally swimmers!

This year, on August 4th, Cally took two teams of three swimmers to the event. The swimmers were Alex, Csaba and Luka (Cally Masters) in one team, and Katie, Lorenzo and Nils (Team Cally) in the other.

Cally Masters finished in third place, shortly behind the second place team. Team Cally finished first and broke the wetsuit relay team record for the course. Great swimming team: congratulations!

Cally Open Water Swimming

Members of Cally Masters have taken part in several open water events recently. There was a strong turn-out at the Capital Tri West Reservoir event in May and there were several podium places. As we’ve said before, this is the perfect (and local) event for those new or getting into open water swimming.

Four of our swimmers went to the Jubilee Swim which is a 10k swim down the Jubilee River. There were over 400 finishers. Sally was our only non-wetsuit swimmer; Beth, Gary, Laura and Nils were our other swimmers, all finishing with very respectable times and places: Gary was second in his category, Laura was third in hers and Nils took first place overall. Well done to all!

There were also very impressive results at the Swim Solstice event in a sailing lake in Ripley, Surrey. This is a three hour event where solo swimmers or teams of two or three complete as many laps as possible in the time. Laura and a friend were the first in the two person teams, ahead of a team of Clare (who recently left us but who we still claim as a Cally swimmer) and her friend in second place. Alex, Csaba and Nils were the first-placed of the three swimmer teams, ahead of Ewan, Jo and Chris who were runners-up.

Great swimming everyone!

Cally Masters Regain Middlesex Champions Title!

 

It was swim, swim, swim and win, win, win for Cally Masters at the Middlesex County Masters Swimming Championships at the weekend! Cally smashed the opposition to win the overall competition scoring a whopping 466 points. In second place Out To Swim, London’s LGBT aquatic club, managed 305 points, and third placed Barnet, 295.

The women also won the trophy for the top women’s team. Every Cally swimmer left the Barnet Copthall pool where the event took place clutching medals.

Special mention goes to Paul Botham who proved that age is no barrier when it comes to improved performance. Swimming in the 70+ age group, he recorded his best breaststroke time for over 5 years. Rebecca Adam (38) recorded the third best time of all women in all age groups in the prestigious 50m freestyle. Despite a major goggle malfunction, Sara Perry achieved a decisive victory in the 60+ age group.

Perhaps the real stars were Rebecca and Sara who produced a masterplan for the relays ensuring the every swimmer was used to best advantage. With not a single disqualification in the relays this year, they proved to be Cally’s greatest weapon. Well done everybody!