SWINDON Dolphin are toasting a masterful display after a host of their senior swimmers shone at the London Aquatics Centre.

A full 16 Dolphins competitors travelled to the capital to take part in the European Masters Swimming Championships on May 25-29 and across 36 individual swims and three relays, the club’s representatives plundered 13 lifetime bests, 12 age group personal bests, five season bests and two long course personal bests.

But the star Dolphin of the day was Jon Audis, who, competing in the 35-39 age category, won the 200m backstroke in a season’s best time of two minutes and 15.09 seconds on Saturday before storming to another gold medal in the 100m backstroke on the final day of competition on Sunday, breaking his own British record as he touched home in 1:00:66.

Team-mate Alison Nye was forced to compete under the Spencer Swim Team banner but helped herself to a silver medal in the 4x50m freestyle relay.

“For the club, it was a tremendous achievement and it was great fun,” said Dolphin Masters coach Colin Jones “But It was hugely frustrating because of the organisation of the event – it wasn’t that well organised and it didn’t do justice to the Masters or to the venue.

“When I took over the Masters, we targeted trying to get between four and six swimmers to go to the Europeans and we ended up having 19 swimmers qualify and enter.

“Unfortunately, three had to pull out for personal reasons but we still had 16 swimmers there and that is just awesome.

“I focused on this and we targeted this meet and I just wanted to be there for them.

“It was an absolute privilege and every one of them worked their socks off and I couldn’t have asked for any more from any one of them.

“Many swimmers will never have swum at a meet at that level before. Some of them had never raced in a 50m pool before so this was like a high point in their swimming career.

“To have prepared so well and then performed on the day is a huge achievement.”

Coach Jones was also delighted with Audis’ standout 100m backstroke display.

He added: “I think it was a bit of a surprise. He felt he could have done better in the 50m (backstroke, in which Audis finished fourth), we weren’t holding out massive hopes in the 200m and he won gold.

“I think he was ranked eighth in the 200m and came in and won the gold. He destroyed the field."

so well in the first 100 metres of that 200, that we thought ‘he could do something here’.

“He did all the work. He is a fantastic swimmer and we planned the race accordingly and he went out and won the gold and broke the record.”