A strong Nottinghamshire masters team won a comfortable victory in the East Midlands Masters Challenge Gala on April 26.
Nottinghamshire fielded a team of 32, made up of swimmers from 7 clubs (Nottingham Leander, CABSC, Radford, Retford, Arnold, Carlton Forum and Mansfield), to take on Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire at Braunstone Leisure Centre, Leicester. The annual event includes 50m individual races for each stroke and age group (18+, 30+, 40+, 50+ and 60+) as well as numerous relays.
The team’s strength in depth was evident particularly in the relay events, with Notts winning 13 of the 19 relays, many by a large margin, and taking second place in the other 6 relays. Individual winners from Notts were Iain Nicholson, Sue Arrowsmith, Danny Anderson, Hannah Clay, Mick Commons, James Kearney, Becky Milnes, Pete Abell, Katie Loker, Alex Thurston, Pete Kerslake, Alison Patterson and Alice Morgan.
The team eventually won the event by more than 30 points from a strong Derbyshire team that had placed in the top 10 in the 2014 national inter-counties in November.
Final points totals:
Nottinghamshire 198
Derbyshire 162
Leicestershire 117
Lincolnshire 95