AS previously reported, Norman Goddard, secretary of Tenby and District Swimming Club, competed in the recent British Masters Swimming Championships held at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, London.

Norman, despite his advancing years, remains a keen competitive swimmer and continues to support Tenby and Pembrokeshire in the Open category (16 years plus).

Masters swimming, however, provides an opportunity for competition with swimmers of his own age and is structured into five year age bands from 19 years of age up to 100 years plus.

Norman has recently moved into category F for swimmers aged 50-54 years of age and is the current Welsh record holder in the 50, 100 and 200 metre freestyle short course (25 metre pool) events.

Crystal Palace is the venue for the British Long Course (50 metre pool) Championships and Tenby and District Swimming Club are pleased to report that their elder statesman had a very successful weekend, finishing with a gold medal in the 400m freestyle and silver in both the 50 and 100m freestyle, setting new Welsh long course records in each of the events.

Although a short distance sprint swimmer, Norman is now in training over the longer distance freestyle races (800 and 1500 metres) in an attempt to become the first Welsh Masters swimmer to hold all short and long course Welsh freestyle records in his age category.