LEN Masters Championships – London
These Championships were always going to be busy given that it was an opportunity to swim in the pool used in the last Olympic Games. So it was that 10000+ Masters Swimmers from descended on London between May 25th and 29th. However, such popularity brings its own problems and the organisation of the whole event swung between exemplary (the poolside officials and the actual swims), through irritating/comical (the limits on capacity which meant some horrendous queues; dreadful spectator toilets; fairly officious security; no commemorative items), downright farcical/dangerous (10minute warm up periods with no marshalling and “European” style lane rotation and diving in any lane at any time; no warm down at all) through to the potentially actionable (event not as advertised – swimming in both the main and warm up pools; requirement to reduce personal entries from five swims to three, as a results many people only swimming the “bomb shelter” of a warm up pool; poor communication and an apparent disdain for the thoughts/feelings/comments of the Masters community whilst taking a huge amount of money – LEN, LOC, British Swimming). The social media sites have been incandescent for the entire period between the opening of the entries, through the re-opening of the entries, the competition and beyond, with David Sparkes having come in for significant amount of criticism.
However, that is not to distract from the enjoyment and achievements of the club’s swimmers, the highlight of which was Helen Kula-Przezwanski’s Gold Medal and British Record in the Women’s 200 Backstroke 55-59 age group. Overall 4 medals were won as detailed in the following tables.