The Malty Team Gala is an event where swimmers race as part of a team, collecting points for their position in the race. It's a really fun event which always delivers exciting and close racing, also it is organised by our very own masters swimmer Helen Turner. It was neck and neck racing, with Team Steel’s Masters in the lead by 1 point at half way. Even though we had some more fantastic swims and came first in the mixed Canon relay it was still extremely close as Team Steel came in third overall, a fantastic result. The masters swimmers really enjoyed the Team atmosphere and a meal together after the meet was the perfect way to finish off a hard days racing. It was great to see a few newcomers, who competed for the first time, race with our more established swimmers. Hopefully next year with some more experience, Team Steel will win this event. This was a great opportunity for Masters to show that they are a growing squad in Team Steel and improving meet to meet. A special thanks to Wendy and Tim for organising the team and encouraging some new swimmers to try it out, hopefully we will see them race in the individual meets coming up in May and June. Thank you to all the volunteer officials on behalf of Team Steel.
On Sunday, 5 swimmers ventured down to Hucknall just north of Nottingham for the Calverton and Bingham Swim Club Masters Open meet. Danny Roberts who had raced on Saturday at Maltby showed no signs of tiring and came a fantastic third overall in his age group. Masters coach and lady of Steel Wendy, who had also swam the day before, showed her skills over the 50m, 100m and 200m Breaststroke with some impressive performances and third overall in her age group. With no swim-down pool the racing became very hard in the later stages of the competition, especially as most swimmers had entered 5 or more events. Harriet, though, saved the best until last and swam a great performance over her first ever Masters 100m Breaststroke, qualifying for the British Masters National Championships. Ryan tried to turn back the years over the 200 Fly after 6 ½ years not racing it and didn’t, but came first overall. Masters has a new sprinter in Linzi who got four golds in each of the 50s and a superb 29.77 sec over 50m Freestyle. With these results after two long days racing the Masters squad will be training hard over Easter preparing for the Yorkshire and British Masters Championships in June.