Middlesex County Meet at Barnet Copthall 21 May 2023

Twelve swimmers attended the annual Middlesex Meet. There was a mix of the experienced, first timers and returnees after a long break. It was great to welcome Water Polo swimmers to this team who put their competitive spirit too good use. Every swimmer won medals so that Out to Swim gained third place in the men’s individual section, only a few points behind second place. The individual medal total was: 6 Gold, 8 Silver and 1 Bronze. In the relays (200 Free and Medley) our M100+ team won 2 gold; the M120+, 1 silver and one bronze and the M200+, 2 Silver.

A great learning experience for all with lots PBs, fun and camaraderie.

Hannah & Christopher
OTS Swimming Competitions Captains

GB Masters National Long Course meet, Ponds Forge pool, Sheffield 2-4 June 2023

Traditionally, not many from OTS travel to this meet, in a different city around the UK each year. It’s ideal for distance swimmers and is less crowded that the Short Course Nationals in October.

Four of us attended, dodging train strikes successfully and getting there in time to warm up and race. Our medal haul was: 3 Gold, 1 Silver and 4 Bronze. Congratulations to Myles for his first ever Nationals medal in the 400 Free and a Long Course PB for the 100 Free.

The number of National, European and World  Long-Course records broken was phenomenal in both individual and relay events, so we were well entertained.

Hannah & Christopher
OTS Swimming Competitions Captains

‘Six go to Paris’ the TIP Report May 27th - 28th 2023

Six OTS swimmers went to Paris for the annual TIP meet.  They had a great mix of swimming and social fun. In all 7 gold medals, 3 silver and 1 bronze were won. Swimmer of the meet was undoubtedly Daniel Ljuslinder with an impressive 5 Gold medals.

Outside the pool. Restaurants were visited -

‘We did the impossible. We got an outside table for four!’

‘I’m about 5 mins away’

‘We’re getting drinks. What do you want?’

Then there was the party – did anyone go? And the sight-seeing + Add on excursions to other parts of France afterwards.  Don’t miss out next year.

Hannah & Christopher
OTS Swimming Competitions Captains

IGLA 23 Report from the OTS Swim Captain

IGLA London 23 was the largest opportunity ever, for Out to Swim swimmers to participate in an international meet. As Club Captains we encouraged people to sign up at training sessions and by talking to many individuals. The relays were our responsibility and for the first time we used Google Forms to collect information from participants. We sent out links to the form to known IGLA signees and used OTS Comms club-wide to post the link to all Out to Swim members. The result was 83 responses from which we

were able to put together 43 relay teams. These included swimmers from Brighton & Hove and Bristol, so that for the first time, the whole club was swimming together. Lanes 1 to 7 were all represented, as were all age-groups up to 75+.

The overall medal count (individual and relays) was 59 Gold, 46 Silver and 34 Bronze. As hosts, we had the advantage of numbers and so IGLA does not allow the host club to win the competition. Every swimmer who competed won points, no matter where they were placed and we ended up 570.5 points ahead of the winners, DCAC.

Over the week, there were many PB’s and some valuable learning experiences. Both swimmers and coaches found out what they need to work on and those who found unexpected strengths.

For us, the most exciting part was the relays. We entered teams in all age groups from 100+ to 280+, covering Men’s, Women’s and Mixed (open) categories. Swimmers stepped up throughout the week to fill gaps due to personal circumstance demonstrating the fantastic team spirit we have. The medal tally for relays was: 14 Gold, 4 Silver and 3 Bronze.

To quote an Out to Swim first-time swimmer – ‘This has been so much fun. I want to do it again.’

Hannah & Christopher
OTS Swimming Competitions Captains

Angels in Brussels 2023

Fun to come back to Brussels as an artistic swimmer! I started this a year ago after reading in @elizabeth_gilbert_writer 's Big Magic a story about a woman who takes up ice- skating later in life. I was thinking about beginning things as an adult, anti-ageism, imagination, possibility and an interesting obituary!

I'm so glad I took the plunge. Even though most sessions are very physically and mentally confronting, I feel part of a community outside of work and thats been huge. Even though the sensory environment of the extremely long day competition events is too much for me, I find a way to be part of it and this team are really supportive in helping me expand my horizons, share things I know from dance, challenge myself and let me challenge them sometimes too! In a journey of working towards accepting more if myself it's been really cool to enter a new space with more self-knowledge and boundaries and confidence and then see what can happen.

We also did really well in the competition and I'm proud of us. The standard @brusselsopenmasters was extremely high and the culture of a competitive discipline isn't always easily compatible with the values that I feel my club holds. We celebrated each other and the other teams and I think we've come away from it stronger.

J. Neve Harrington - OTS Angel

Royal Navy Masters Meet 2023

Competition Report: Royal Navy Masters meet at Millfield School, Street, Sommerset Sunday 26th February 2023

Twenty-Two from Out to Swim attended the Royal Navy Masters meet at Millfield School, Street in Sommerset last Sunday. Seven London Swimmers joined fifteen from our Bristol branch. Five of the swimmers were women and it was great to have a much higher proportion of women than usual. We were also well represented by swimmers from the Vintage Group for swimmers, who now have an open invitation to visit Bristol. The weekend kicked off with some London swimmers joining the regular Saturday training session in Bristol, followed by an ‘Pasta Party’ to carb-up for the next day. Thanks to Mark for providing his flat and to Jennifer for sorting the delicious food.

Bristol members provided transport from to Millfield – about an hour’s drive. Millfield School has produced many elite swimmers in it’s time, so we were swimming in the pool of future champions. Out to Swim came in third in the clubs entered with individual medals at 6 Gold, 13 Silver and 8 Bronze.  Relays: Medley – 1 Gold, 2 Silver & 1 Bronze. Freestyle – 1 Gold, 1 Silver & 1 Bronze. The club swimming was excellent and Steve, who hadn’t raced for eight years conquered his fears for the M240+ relay team events, a huge achievement.

Christopher Preston, Men’s Club Captain

Vienna Valentines Meet 2023

Competition Report: Vienna Valentines meet 2023

We can be really proud of our 20 swimmers in Vienna for a weekend of hard swimming plus some serious eating, and party-going. We started the OTS team bonding on Friday night with a great pizza place. Mark Nash organised gret accommodation at Womads Hostel and The Jazz Hotel.

Overall, Out to Swim came 3rd in the medals league with a total of 42. Due to our lack of women, we were pipped to first place by only 6 medals. We did win the most gold medals though, a massive 23, with 12 silver and 8 Bronze.

We are getting even better at relays: Our M100+ 4 x 50 medley teams came in 1st and 2nd; the M120+ were 1st and the M160+ cam in 3rd. The meet ended with the 4 x 50 Freestyle and once again our M100+ teams came in 1st and 2nd. The M120+ team came 2nd.

Out to Swim broke 12 of Vienna’s meet records this year.

Christopher Preston, Men’s Club Captain

South East Masters Meet 2023

Competition Report: South East Long Course Masters Meet – Crawley

Nine Swimmers from 20’s to 70’s competed at Crawley over the weekend, a great mix of experienced OTS swimmers and newbies.  In all, we swam in 37 events, bringing in 8 golds, 9 silvers and 6 bronzes with everyone in the team with a medal.

The quality of OTS coaching was evident with many well swum and heroic races. Some of the highlights were: Martin B making backstroke ‘look’ easy; Tom H for his signature 400 Free; Ryan B for a superb 200 Backstroke. Gus left everyone else behind in the 400 IM while Phil C and Michal L swam excellent 200 breaststroke races notching up a few PB’s between them. Congratulations to Myles on his second ever race meet and first ever medals and a huge welcome to Michael K for his first UK race meet and managing to adapt from Short Course US yards to Long Course Metres.

Christopher Preston Men’s Team Captain

OTS Santa Sprints 2022

Competition Report: Santa Sprints 17th December 2022

Last Saturday, just over forty swimmers turned up for the inaugural Santa Sprints at Queen Mother pool in Victoria. First up was the 100M Individual Medley followed by 25M in Freestyle, Backstroke and Breaststroke. There were 50m sprints in all four strokes, followed by 4 x 50m freestyle relay with 8 teams ranging from 100+ to  240+ years.

We completed the meet with two fun relays: Pass the Christmas Tee Shirt – where each swimmer had to wear the Tee Shirt and pass it on to the next swimmer. The Balloon relay ended the session – each swimmer had a balloon and passed it to the next swimmer. The last swimmer ended up with 6 balloons to deliver to Santa. After all the fun, fun, fun – there was cake – then to the Market Halls, Victoria for a pint.

Richard Walton’s amazing team of 13 Out to Swim Officials presided over the meet with Nick J and Ian Wollard (Barnet Copthall/Middlesex) running the meet system. The Referee was Hilary and Phil was in control of the starting 'gun'. Martin and Stephen were our marshals and a further seven volunteers helped to make the meet run like clockwork, blowing up balloons, hanging banners and clearing up afterwards.

The organising committee, Lead by Danny Hadden (Chair of Swimming) were: Isabelle, Christopher, Michelle, Ryan and Richard.

Masters National Championships 2022

Team Captains’ Report: Swim England Masters National Championships 28th - 30th October 2022

Out to Swim showed up to Sheffield for the Swim England Masters National Championships with a team of 22 swimmers, a small and close-knit group. Notably there was a great turnout by OTS’ women, with eight women competing over the weekend. The swimmers were joined by two officials, Richard Walton and Hilary Gerlis.

The team was comprised of both veterans and rookies, the latter including Henry Hudson, new to OTS and bringing great energy and enthusiasm at his very first swimming competition. Among the veterans was a legendary 4x200 FLY relay (yes, you read that right), comprising Steph Ramsay, Titta Latalla, Lucy Galoppa and Sarah Funderburk. Kudos also goes to Hannah Soltz who raced a total of 525 meters of breaststroke over the course of the weekend, including contributing to several key relays.

OTS had a strong medal haul with Christopher Preston winning silver in the 100 back and bronze in the 50 back; Chris Unsworth snagging a bronze in the 200 back; Matt Wan capturing bronze in both the 50 back and 200 IM; and Gus Veasey raking in golds in the 100 and 200 back; silver in the 400 IM and 400 freestyle, as well as bronze in the 200IM.

The meet was inspiring, watching swimmers from across the country even in their 90s still competing, as well as swimmers with different abilities and also trans swimmers. Many British, European, and even World Records were broken.

The team had a lot of fun supporting and cheering each other on, with lively team dinners and making sure Gus had cake and champagne on his birthday on Sunday. A big shout out and thank you to Jenny Loaring, our only non-swimming coach, who offered valuable feedback and advice throughout the meet.

Officials Report - Richard Walton
It was lovely to join our team at Nationals to officiate. Hilary and I were very proud of the swimmers - including some first-time competitors!

Amsterdam Valentine Tournament 2022

Team Captains’ Report: Valentine Tournament (delayed) 7th - 9th October 2022

Delayed due to Covid restrictions in February, Out to Swim ended up with a massive 29 Swimmers traveling to Amsterdam for the weekend representing Lanes 1 to 6. We entered six teams in the 4 x 50 Medley Relays and 7 teams for the 4 x 50 Free.

Upstream organised the whole weekend, starting with a Friday night swim, registration and drinks. Saturday’s races started at the very civilised hour of 12.30pm with a hectic twenty-minute warm-up and from then on, the pace continued. We did a lot of cheering, catching up with old European friends and winning medals. Our final tally was 58: - 37 Gold, 11 Silver and 10 Bronze. From our relay teams, covering a number of age groups (Men’s and Mixed):  4 x 50 Medley 3 Gold, 1 Silver, 1Bronze. 4 x 50 Freestyle 3 Gold, 1 Silver 1 Bronze.

After that it was dinner and party time at an amazing venue created out of the old Amsterdam Gas-works. Some made it back to the Hostel accommodation (organised by Danny) just in time to check out and make it to the brunch. All the food catered for carnivores, vegetarians and vegans. It was revealed that we had won the most medals and were presented with a trophy.  I thanked Upstream for a fabulous weekend and hoped that Out to Swim could return their hospitality next year at IGLA in London. As Daniel L posted: ‘For every gala I go to with OTS, I have more fun.’

Results https://upstreamamsterdam.nl/valentine-tournament-2022/

TIP Paris 2022

Team Captains’ Report: TIP Paris 4th – 5th June 2022

A team of 25 swimmers from OTS travelled to Paris for the 16th TIP. This tournament has been a favourite for many years and was especially important this year, being the first LGBT swim meet in Europe post pandemic.

European Masters swimmers have been slower returning to training and several we spoke to mentioned the continuing reluctance of their team-mates to compete and travel. In this respect Out to Swim people are incredibly fortunate to have the venues and coaches enabling us to be competition ready. I hope that we have been an example to encourage our friends.

It was amazing to catch up with old friends from past competitions and find that the old camaraderie is still there. Some may remember Jerome who swam with us for many years and now lives in Nice. He brought 3 others from his team.

We did not win all the medals but our strong relay teams ensured that everyone came home with at least one. The tally was: Gold – 65, Silver – 17, Bronze 13. Each member of a relay team received a medal.

We had great fun working out the relay teams over coffee in trendy Shoreditch. Sadly, Brendon and Richard had to cancel at the last minute due to circumstances beyond their control. Thanks to Paul Mc, Hubba, Dermot and Rhys for coming to our rescue and it all paid off on the day. The highlight was the 10 x 50m freestyle relay at the end of the meet. We presented two teams led by Isabelle and Danny. They theoretically, had equal times so it was an incredibly exciting race. It turned out that several of the youngsters had underestimated their times and or swam their fastest ever so that Danny’s team were the clear winners. The results, however revealed that the combined ages of each team were different, so all were winners. A great result.

Michael Jennings (The Coach) was a great support rallying those staying in the Hostel, making sure everyone got to their race and providing feedback. There was some very fine swimming over the two days and there were also some exciting discoveries with some of our new, younger swimmers. It was also a delight to see others returning to competitive swimming.

Our chair of swimming (Danny) arranged our social activities for the weekend, ensuring that we were all fed and watered for the following day. Muscling in on the Water Polo party apparently went well, so with not much sleep, some struggled with 400 Freestyle on Sunday morning. Apparently (based on the WhatsApp thread) the final night party was another success.

OTS joins the Navy

The Royal Navy Masters’ Open Meet, Sunday 27 February 2022

Over 20 swimmers from across Out to Swim joined together to swim and fly the flag for inclusive aquatics at the the 19th Royal Navy Open Masters Meet.  It is only the second time that we’ve swum at the event, the first time was before the pandemic with just 7 plucky Out to Swim West pioneers.  This time, our meet captain Michael S set the ambition for swimmers from across the club to take part, and Out to Swim West welcomed members from London with open arms in true OTS tradition.

It quickly became a focus event for many of our swimmers and coaches and, thanks to our lead OTSW coach Jenny, the whole club have been helping us prepare for our first 2022 competitive swim.  There have been opportunities for structured pre-swim warm-ups, improving technique, timed swims and block starts, turns and finishes.  This led to a great training session the Saturday beforehand when we opened our doors to Andy, Steph and Daniel, and together we were able to walk through competition day and support each other through peer coaching.

What made the preparation and event was the support we got from our OTS family.  OTSW members Rob and Tom threw open the doors to their home for a pasta party the night before and fuelled our effort.  

Poolside, coach Jenny helped swimmers - some who were new to competitions or needed reminding - with much needed morale. We saw the best in OTS who cheered and congratulated each other. We were joined in the stands by our OTS family (Rob, Dan and Adam) as well as our actual families and their homemade posters (of Nina, Matt and Al) and, as usual, most of our energy came from poolside baking with ‘star baker’ mentions to Michael N and Michael S’s niece.

The swims in the 8 lane, 25m competition pool felt, for the most part, good. We were keen to celebrate success, support swimmers who didn’t achieve what they wanted (in part thanks to a very keen judge!), and help each other to pace across a long day of aquatics. Jenny reminded us all that, what was most important, was to have learnt something about ourselves and to keep swimming.

We had huge success. OTS came 5th place out of 80 teams. There were many personal achievements across the group and we are very proud of Andrew and Nina who were both top in their age groups. In addition to many other medals, our men’s freestyle A team got gold in their age group.

We are proud of each other and are hope to join the Navy again in 2023. Our team captain Michael left us with this

“‘You should all be really proud of yourselves. It’s not easy swimming in front of so many people, but PBs were smashed all over the place and most importantly lots of cake was eaten’.”

OTS sweeps 63 medals at IGLA 2019 New York

A 23-strong team made the journey to New York in June for IGLA 2019 and World Pride. As ever, the team performed exceptionally coming 5th overall out of 72 teams and scoring 1768. The men’s and women’s teams finished 4th and 5th respectively, despite only having 4 women.

In addition to winning 63 medals (27G, 17S & 19B), there were a number of personal victories, including:

• Andrew B beating Olympic swimmer Fonua in 50 breastroke

• 2 outstanding personal bests in the women’s 1500m freestyle

• OTS taking all three medal spots in the 30-34 men’s 200m breaststroke

• Making up a third of the total competitors for the women’s 200 fly

• Fielding one of only two women’s medley relays against a pool full of mixed teams

• A swimmer being part of a winning relay for the first time

• Swimmers conquering the 200m breaststroke and 400 IM for the first time in competition

• Making it to every warmup, despite enjoying New York to its fullest.

As ever it was noted that we cheer the loudest, always look like we’re having a great time and stayed on poolside until the last swimmers came in (thank you to the men’s team for cheering the women’s team in!)

Once the competition was over, OTS continue to work (and play) just as hard at the IGLA Closing Party and World Pride. All of the poolside and Central Park practice paid off with the world debut of our ‘Wet’ choreography, a week before London Pride.

Thank you and congratulations to all the swimmers who took part and made a truly memorable week. A reminder to any swimmers wanting to join us next time, that GLLAM is coming up in September and Eurogames 2020 (also LGBT+) will be in August.

Anyone with any questions, please ask Swim Captains Steph and Paul