Nice to see that Serpentine SC finished in fourth place in the medals table at this year's cold water winter swimming championships.
Robin Hunter-Coddington added more gold to hide under his mattress following his win in the 70 to 79 year breastroke race. It's true that Robin was the only swimmer in his age bracket. It's also true that Robin's time was faster than all the swimmers in the men's 60 to 69 years age group. And for the record, Robin was faster than any woman aged 50 or above.
Nick Adams, an Eton mathematics teacher won gold in his freestyle race in the 30 -39 years age bracket in the second fastest time of the day with 16.88 seconds. It was noted that an Eton college pupil David Dubrovsky, set the fastest time of the day with a 16.78 second 25 metre swim in the under 20 race. David!
Volker Koch won silver in his breastroke final for the 40-49 year age group. Six women finished in the same line in the 30-39 age bracket and Laura Moss missed out on a medal by two tenths of a second.
George Cselko was just outside the medals in his breastroke final (50-59). We had a two, three, four placing in the women's 20-29 years breastroke, with Louise Ireland taking silver ahead of Erika Cule and Katherine Lawson.
The freestyle race within a race between Robin Hunter Coddington and Gordon Brodie was won by Robin the in-form occasional wetsuiter. Robin took silver in the 70-79 years race. Jaki Fischel-Boch won her battle in the 50-59 years freestyle with English Channel swimmer Fiona Southwell, but both were outside the medals placings. James Norton placed eighth in a fast men's 50-59 years freestyle.
Angela Johnson placed fourth in her 30-39 years freestyle race. Beatrice Heller came fifth in the 20-29 years race. The speedy Felicity Challinor defied her comparative youth to win bronze in her under 20 race. Felicity has another five years of competition at under 20 level.
In the relays, Team Phipps captained by Alan Mitchell placed fifth in the over 180 years race. A five second handover penalty cost Team Titmuss a gold medal in the under 180 years race. Team Kelly were ninth in the same race and team Saunders were 22nd. Team Cuthbert were 26th and team Martin were 38th.
Overall, Serps finished fourth in the medal table with two gold, three silvers and three bronze medals.
A nice day and thank you to our friends at SLSC for organising a great gala.
A few photos from the morning swimming events from the cold water winter swimming championships. The gala was excellently organised by our friends from South London Swimming Club. Swimmers from a variety of locations competed; Sandycove from Cork, Brighton, Eton College and many others.
