The final Surrey Masters gala of the year was once again held at the Herons, home of Haslemere Swimming Club
And Haslemere's intrepid team of eight carried on from their successes of a fortnight ago with some excellent performances, both individual and team.
John Callingham was first on the blocks and swam two immaculate individuals in the 50m butterfly and 100m breaststroke events, winning bronze and gold respectively.
Callingham, swimming the breaststroke leg, then joined up with Peter Rowley (back), Adam Baker ('fly) and Malcolm Frost (freestyle) in the 160+ years medley relay event and, in a storming race, won the silver medal in a time of 1min 05.70secs.
Inspired by this, the ladies' freestyle team (the Golden Girls) of Alison Baranowski, Janis White, Laura Harvey and Jill Frost pulled out all the stops in a very competitive event to touch first and win the gold medal in a very respectable time of 1-00.81
The final medal for the group came in the 4 x 1 mixed freestyle. Haslemere entered two teams and the 'B' squad of Laura Harvey, Janis White, Peter Rowley and Malcolm Frost finished sixth in 1min 02.05secs.
The 'A' team of Alison Baranowski, Jill Frost, John Callingham and, the youngster of the team, Adam Baker, swam a sub-minute 57.18 to win another gold for Haslemere.
All eight swam magnificently on the night against much larger clubs, to the delight of retiring coach Brenda Blackaby whose comment was: "Their performance was outstanding. What more can a coach ask for?"
Brenda will be sorely missed by all at the club, both young and old.



