Gay swim club celebrates gold medal haul
London’s gay swimming club has raced to fourth place at the recent gay world swimming championships held in Paris – collecting a world record and relay gold, led by twenty-three year old Alex Davis with swept the board with six gold medals.
With more than 700 competitors the championships were the most heavily contested of recent history – including a 70-strong Out to Swim contingent which included three water polo teams.
Alex Davis won four individual and two relay gold medals in the women’s freestyle events – the most of any swimmer at the championships.
Aaron Murphy, 44, took on the toughest task of all – the 1500m freestyle and set a world age group record of 18 minutes in his first competitive attempt at the distance.
Other multiple gold medallists included a sweep of the women’s 50-54 years group with Patricia Dec taking five gold and two bronze and Sarah Corlett with two of each gold, silver and bronze.
Double gold medal winners in the Mens ranged from the baby of the team 23 year old Stephen Lue to Ryan Heath (27), Larry Bolton (38) and coach-turned-elder-statesman of the team Steve Bratt (56).
Lue, Heath and Bolton combined with Colin Chih to smash the three strongest American teams in the men’s 4x50m Medley relay in well under two minutes.
OTS Water Polo captain Andy MacKinnon was pleased with the performance of the three teams entered.
OTS Polo had the largest squad entered with its 3 teams and also had the only all women’s team in the competition.
Other swimming gold medalists were Oonagh Gormley and Achim Holzberger who picked up a total of six medals between them.
