A big crowd of happy Serpies enjoyed an excellent day out at Tooting Bec Lido on Saturday 26 January when the South London Swimming Club hosted the Cold Water Swimming Championships with their usual clockwork precision and showbiz panache. As usual the provision of hot showers, jacuzzis and a sauna by our friendly rivals prompted some overheated envious speculation but the austere Serpentine regime paid off with a dazzling haul of 18 medals:
90m freestyle
Anita Goyos gold
Will Luckhurst gold
Cameron Kelly gold
Norman Jones gold
Juliet Finnis silver
Alan Luckhurst bronze
30m ice fly
Will Luckhurst gold
Anita Goyos silver
Joseph Kotrie-Monson bronze
30m freestyle
Will Luckhurst gold
Norman Jones gold
Alan Luckhurst bronze
30m breastroke
Will Luckhurst gold
Alan Luckhurst silver
Team relays
One L of a Team ft H&C gold
The team name initials two Luckhursts, Alan L’s girlfriend Hannah and Cameron.
Given that the world championships are held alternating years with the cold water championships in Tooting, all this means that our own Will Luckhurst, who uniquely won gold in every category, is officially the best cold water swimmer on the planet!
Many thanks too to Deirdre Ward for pulling off the slippery task of wrangling our swimmers into three further Serpentine relay teams, Walrus, Beluga and Narwhal, the latter supplied with magnificent sword tusks by Nicola Sanderson, contributing to the marvellous cavalcade of stupendous headgear that distinguishes this from less colourful championships.
Congratulations not just to those bemedalled but to all our bold and hearty swimmers, and thanks to Rosemary Lewis, Mike Harris, Stuart Bowman, Juliet Finnis, Siu Fung Lam and Lisa Peake for the pics.
Full results can be found here
https://www.slsc.org.uk/race-results/
One L of a Team ft H&C
