The 2009 Annual Review for The Food Chain arrived in the post this morning.  The Food Chain, for those of you who don't know, ensures that people living with HIV have access to essential food and nutrition information.

Page 12 of their Review contains the following:

Eleven intrepid swimmers battled the English Channel

The Out to Swim team sent us a very humble email letting us know they "might do a sponsored swim" in aid of The Food Chain.  Little did we know that this was to be no ordinary sponsored swim .. this was a relay swim across the Channel which would raise over £9,400!

The first team made their journey in 13 hours and 14 minutes, the second team were even quicker, making the crossing in 12 hours and 55 minutes.  Throughout their extraordinary journey they kept us entertained and updated via text and blog updates.

Thank you to Richard Snow, Alastair Bell, Alex Magliaro, Jeremy Arnold, Alex Davis, Clinton Pascoe, Simon Brooke, Rene Reinbacher, Simone Coetzee, Michael Reid and Charlie Stewart for all the hours of training, the promotion, the fundraising and of course making it to France.

I don't think there is anything we could add to that!

Twenty brave OTS swimmers took to the deck of the Enfield Leisure centre on Sunday for the annual Middlesex County competition. We were a sleepy bunch at 9am but Mike made sure that no one was left behind.

The pool felt sparse when compared with previous years, but once the warm up began, it soon became clear that the very busy pool meant it was going to be tough and fast competition.

I was extremely proud of OTS and our ability to make the most noise and show the most support for our team mates, when compared with the other teams who had larger numbers.

Enfield is a fast pool and it meant that many of us were able to do PBs. There were excellent swims from all swimmers and OTS achieved individual gold medals in eight events, fifteen individual silver and eleven individual bronze medals.

Gold medal swims included Melissa Schramm (200 free), Luis Lopez (50 breast & 100 IM), Karin Lockhoff (50 fly), Martin Bradford (50 fly), Lizzie Bellinger (50m fly and 100 IM) and Janice Lawton (50 back).

Special congratulations to Lizzie Bellinger who broke the British National Record for her age group in the 50m fly event with a time of 29.22.  Go Lizzie!

Across the board our relay teams showed the rest of Middlesex that OTS is not to be trifled with and there were two relay gold medals awarded to the Mixed 100+ team (Alex, Emma, Stephen and Mike) in the medley relay and the Women 160+ team (Janice, Melissa, Rachel and Lucille) in their free relay.  OTS also received seven silver and three bronze relay medals.

There were surprise visits from friends and family of the team, from Tristan’s Mum to Stephen’s Aunt and indeed Pauls Seyde’s Dad, who decided to strike up a conversation while Paul was on the blocks!
At the end of the meet OTS placed 4th overall out of the sixteen participating teams – next year let’s make it 1st!

Thanks to Mike Guy for organizing our participation in such a great meet.

(Thanks to Steve Bratt for the picture.)

More photos from:

• Lizzie Bellinger
  

Probably the best way to describe our weeked in Paris was simply awesome!

As usual the venue was fantastic, the weather perfect and the company of great friends unbeatable.

Now for some team updates:

Water polo

It was a fantastic weekend of water polo in Paris with both our teams performing really well. The A team finished a very respectable 5th but it was the B team, under the leadership of David Henderson, that were the real revelation. While we finished 9th we all stepped it up a level, demonstrating confidence and skills in the water and matching it with the more experienced teams.

As an added bonus, we were clearly the youngest and hottest squad in the tournament.

The intensity of the competition was a great preparation for Cologne - swim fitness and shooting for goal were areas where we all agreed we need to improve.

The weather was also amazing and we managed to work on our tans during the lunch break, while during our downtime we cycled, picnicked and socialised.

(Thanks to Gareth for this.)

Synchro

Another TIP competition, another year eating croissants and having coffee under that lovely sun in Paris, but this year TIP had a twist!!!! We made history!!!!

OTS competed for the first time in synchronized swimming sport, the whole synchronized team and our lovely coach, Sanela, attended the event.

It was a stressful, nerve-racking and an emotional experience; especially for me, who unfortunately was not able to swim due to my wrist injury, though I was there in person and spirit to cheer on my boys. Watching them showed me once again how united, friendly and special OTS is.

We got a silver medal, by default I must add, but we got our first ever medal in synchronized swimming. Those French boys have been doing it for years! Now we are all concentrating on Cologne.

I invite every swimmer to come along to try synchronized swimming, as it isn’t just about the sport. It is all about camaraderie and having a great fun time with your friends.

(Thanks to Jose for this.)

Here are the all important links to some entertainment:

• Photos:
  • George Gardiner
  • Gareth Johnson (water polo)
  • Stephen Lue
  • Stephen A
• Angels video on YouTube, and
• final results (PDF).

A small group of talented swimmers, Paul, Clinton, Ian, Rhys, Martin, Lizzie, Alex, Karin and Lucille have raised the OTS profile yet again. With a great team spirit, fantastic individual and relay swims, we won a total of 14 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze medals and came 3rd in the visiting team competition and yes there were only 9 of us!

When you are prepared to get up for breakfast at 7 on a Saturday morning you realise that swimming is a life choice! So here we all were looking a bit sleepy, Paul, Rhys, Ian and Clinton having had a very long car journey the night before, why didn’t we know they shut the motorway of an evening in Wales!

By 8.15 we were off  to see what Cardiff international Pool had to offer. What a fab pool it was, so bright and open something felt strange though being in clear bright water with no grit and plasters  on the bottom of the pool to look at!

The competition had three sessions, Clinton and Paul seemed to be in nearly every race, both Rhys and Alex were feeling poorly but both pulled it out of the bag when called upon! PB’s came in thick and fast. Lizzie made her mark at her first competition as an Out to Swimmer, both in her individual races but also keeping us all focused/cracking the whip on trying to win the visitor team competition! Ian and Martin proved themselves to be freestyle swimming dreams and Karin did wel, especially remembering to take her towel scarf off before each race!

We all swam so well and there were many moments on pool side where you really can see the difference between  Out to Swim and other teams. We all supported and cheered for each other, had lots of laughs with non stop chatter amongst the team on a whole range of subjects and not just PB’s and race analysis. The boys provided the cakes, Paul’s buns were dreamy and Ian’s Mexican spicy/ savoury/ sweet cookies were a delight, we all played our part in our relays but above all that we had FUN.

It was fab preparation for Cologne. To end off the day we all headed for Wagamama’s and agreed it was a great competition, we have got to go again next year, bring a bigger team and stay of longer to enjoy a night out!

More photos can be found here.