Private School News

World Masters Games Sydney 2009

Kate Nimmo, Second in Department and Head of Swimming at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, competed in five swimming events at the World Masters Games in Sydney during the week of 10th October 2009. She won five gold medals.

Kate trained with the Cheltenham Swimming Club and the Gloucester Masters, in order to boost her fitness levels for the distance events. During the build up to the Games, she recorded a couple of life-time bests and came very close to breaking the British Record on the 400m Freestyle in the 30-34 year age group. Kate started the series of swimming races on 10th October with the 800m Freestyle followed by the 400m and 200m Freestyle and a 50m Backstroke later in the week. The final test was the 400m Individual Medley which involved swimming 100m on each of the strokes starting with Butterfly.

‘Competing in the Games has been an amazing experience, one that I will certainly look back on fondly and not just because of my success,’ said Kate. ‘Being one of over 28,000 athletes competing in 28 different sports at the largest multi-sports event in the world, bigger even than the Olympics, makes you feel very much part of something very big. Each morning the train going to the Olympic Park is full of competitors from a huge array of sports and countries and everyone is so friendly. The support of the ten other team-mates from my club and from College has been overwhelming.’

Kate is now training for the World Masters Swimming Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden in July 2010.

Photo: Kate Nimmo, Head of Swimming