Six golds for Team Luton swimmers

Four Team Luton members were crowned individual champions at the 2022 British Swimming Masters Championships held in Aberdeen recently.

Kelly Cooke, Karen MacKenzie, Dave Wright and Graham Powell spearheaded a weekend that saw the squad of eight win six gold, five silver and three bronze medals while setting four East Region, 15 Beds County and a total of 20 Club Masters records.

Cooke, aged 46, was the youngest champion with victory in the 45-49 years’ 100m backstroke, as she was also third in the 50m backstroke.

She established new County records over 200m, 100m and 50m freestyle, finishing in fourth, sixth and seventh, as a further club record came with fifth in the 50m butterfly.

Competing in the same age group, MacKenzie set a new Beds record long course time in the 200m backstroke to claim gold, after finishing second in the 50m event.

New club records over the same three freestyle events were set by Sharon Thompson in the 55-59 years’ age group, her best placing ninth in the 100m.

In his last year in the men’s 25-29 years’ age group, Sam Bradley competed in five events, claiming top 10 finishes in the 200m freestyle, 100m and 200m backstroke.

Wright was the 60-64 years’ 200m butterfly champion, smashing the East Region record by over 30 seconds.

He then missed it by just 0.08 seconds when coming fourth in the 200m freestyle, but claimed a new County record in the event and the 400m freestyle, also finishing fourth in the 200m backstroke.

Powell won three golds and two silver medals in his 65-69 years’ backstroke and butterfly races, setting three new East Region records and two further County records.

Both Colin Mayes and Malcolm Barton achieved top 10 finishes in the same age group.

Barton lowered his own County record when touching fourth in the 65-69 years’ 100m breaststroke, while he gained silver in the 200m and bronze in the 400m individual medley.

Mayes, meanwhile, collected a bronze medal for his 200m individual medley, setting a new County record time for that and his 50m breaststroke.

He was set to claim to a new 50m freestyle County record for the 65-69 age group, only for Powell to lower the mark with his lead off swim in the mixed 4x50m freestyle relay in the 200-240 years’ age group.

Four Team Luton members were crowned individual champions at the 2022 British Swimming Masters Championships held in Aberdeen recently.

It was the first time the club had entered a Masters’ mixed relay in National Championships, as the quartet of Powell, McKenzie, Wright and Cooke came sixth.

They had previously claimed fourth place in the age group’s 4x50m medley relay and with a combined age of 222 years, were some 20 years older than each of the first three teams.

The quartet of Powell, Barton, Wright and Mayes went in the men’s 240-260 years’ 4x100m medley relay, as after the lead swapped hands, in a nail-biting finish, missed out on gold by 0.63 seconds.