Exmouth’s Men’s Decathlon team led the nationwide decathlon competition going into the final Masters event of the year.  They finally finished 2nd in the UK just missing out to Otter SC for the cash prize. The final points were; Otter SC 1st with 20267 points, 2nd Exmouth Masters on 19949 points & in 3rd place came Gloucester Masters on 19826 points.

The decathlon competition compares the times achieved with the world record for that event with times adjusted to take into consideration the swimmer’s age.  Points are then awarded for each swim and a swimmer’s final points tally totals the swimmer’s best swim in 8 categories and their next best two swims.  The team event then adds up the highest scoring four swimmers from each club to determine the team’s overall score.  Exmouth’s top four swimmers were Bill Letch, Ross Szender, Olly White and Richard Lander.

Masters Coach Bob Clarke commented on the teams improving performance over the last two years, “Fourth last year, second this year can’t wait for next year!!” with the clear aim of the team being to improve further and win the event in 2013.

Exmouth world champion Bill Letch, as well as being the Exmouth men’s team’s top scorer also place third in the individual competition with 6740 points, only missing out on first place by a couple hundred points.

Exmouth Swimming and Life Saving Society’s Masters Squad were in action at the weekend when they swam in the Royal Navy Masters Meet held at Millfield.  The Exmouth team successfully defended their top visiting team trophy for the fourth consecutive year but faced tough competition from local Somerset team Wincanton with the team competition decided by the final relay races.

Caroline Ball, Cameron-Carpenter-Warren, Yvonne Carpenter-Warren, Heather Fell, Nikki Fraser, Neville King, Rich Lander, Sam Lander, Ian Lang, Bill Letch, Christa Page, Ross Szender, Adam Tapp, Bryan White, and Olly White were the swimmers who made the journey accompanied by Masters Coach Bob Clarke.

Exmouth swimmers had a number of strong individual swims throughout the day with many swimming in numerous events to boost the number of points they earnt for the team.  In the relay events Exmouth swimmers continued to earn valuable points; the Men’s 160+ yrs 4x50m Medley team of White, White, Letch and King, and Ladies’ 72-99yrs 4x50 Medley team of Ball, Page, Fell and Fraser winning their relays and the Men’s 72-99yrs 4x50m Medley Relay team of Lander, Lang, Tapp and Lander earning silver in the morning.  In the afternoon the same Men’s 160+ and Ladies’ 72-99yrs again won their freestyle relays whilst Carpenter-Warren, Rich Lander, Tapp and Szender claimed silver.

Exmouth Swimming and Life Saving Society swimmer Mark Westaway recently broke a 48 year old British Long Distance Association record for swimming the 7mile length of Ulswater Breaststroke.  Mark turned to long distance Breaststroke events having completed freestyle events all over the country before successfully swimming the Channel in 2008.

Ulswater is the second longest lake in the Lake District and is one of the highest and coldest lakes; the temperature of around 13degrees Celsius proved a challenge for Mark as the lower stroke rate required to swim breaststroke did not enable him to maintain his body temperature as well as swimming freestyle would have done.  Westaway’s kayaker Kevin Brown called over the safety team a number of times during the swim to discuss Mark’s condition and the distance to the finish.  Once within sight of the finish having rounded the lake’s final bend Mark dug into beat the cold and complete the course in the new record time of 4:25:01, breaking the 48 year old record by 6minutes and 15seconds.

As well as winning the Men’s Breaststroke championship trophy Westaway was also awarded the Taylor Trophy for endeavour to mark his feat of endurance and determination in completing the course.