Grown-ups can win swimming medals too!
That’s the message from Largs swimmer Carol Alderson as she returned with a shiny cup and a fistful of honours from the 25th Anniversary Inverclyde Masters meet at the weekend.
Carol and her teammates Gordon Fraser, Alan Hiddleston & Margaret McGill were presented with the Inverclyde Leisure Cup as winners of the 200+ freestyle relay, for the fastest team with a combined age of over 200.
The awesome foursome, who are all members of North Ayrshire Swimming’s Masters squad should have won the medley relay too but were put in the wrong age grouping.
Between them they also collected 18 podium finishes in the individual events where results are grouped by age bands.
Carol was the women’s category D winner on points with four gold medals.
She began on the Friday evening with the 800m, winning with a 48 second PB for a time of 12:32.
Carol also won the 100m fly, backstroke & 200m IM, was 2nd in 50m backstroke and 3rd in 50m fly and 100m free.
Carol told us: “It was a fantastic, friendly meet. There were over 100 swimmers from across Scotland of all ages from 16-80+.
“Hopefully our success will can encourage more of our Masters to come along to next year’s event.”
"I think there were some nerves because none of us had competed in a relay for well over 20 years so it was a great achievement.
"I was really surprised how well I was able to swim in the 800m and to beat my previous time by 48 seconds was certainly a highlight from the weekend and it is great to know the training is paying off.”
Team mate Alan Hiddleston took three silver medals, setting a 12:06 in his 800m, and also finishing 2nd in the 100m free and 200m IM with a 3rd in the 50m free.
Not for the first time Gordon Fraser battled a goggles malfunction to take 3rd in the 100m breaststroke.
Perhaps if they’d stayed in place he might have repeated his victory in the 50m & 200m event?
Gordon was also 3rd in the 100m IM.
Margaret McGill aced the freestyle events in her age group, winning the 50m & 200m tithes and just missing out over 100m.
North Ayrshire Swimming Head Coach Jess Wilkie, who coaches the Masters at Vikingar said: “I thought they did really well and it’s great to see all their hard work and dedication is paying off.
“They certainly don’t hold back when they’re in training and really push each other along.
“I was so impressed with Carol’s 800m free. She was telling me how it’s the fastest she’s ever been, and it just shows that there’s always room for improvement no matter what age you are.
“There’s always a space for anyone in Masters whether that’s going from people who’ve only just learned to swim through to a competitive swimmer – we even have an Olympic medal winner among our members!”
There’s more information on Masters swimming at www.northayrshireswimming.com.