East Invicta Masters Gala 2026 Report
17 intrepid Deal Tri swimmers took to the pool and represented the club with encouragement from coach Daren and chief whip Jax.
We took part in 11 mixed relay events (teams of 4) and 59 individual entries
Deal Tri was placed third behind Dover Lifeguards and Canterbury but ahead of Faversham. Hythe, Thanet, Herne Bay and Folkestone.
Well done Deal Tri! And we came home with medals.
Torren, Luis and Chris went above and beyond – taking part in 5 relays each on top of their individual events. Some of which were every much thrown at them at the last minute. For some reasons the ladies are more inclined to take part in the gala, which leaves the men outnumbered 5:12 for the mixed relay teams and must compete more often. Challenge for next year!
Star of the day is Torren with a gold medal (in his age group) in all 5 of the individual events he competed in. Mike Downing was awarded 2 silvers and 2 golds and our new member Luis 3 golds and 2 silvers. Luis is warmly welcomed to Deal Tri and we are delighted he has joined the orange contingent.
Wooden spoon is probably me with the only DQ. Darn it – but at least my goggles stayed on this year. Even if Mike’s didn’t.
We all did good! It was a great fun event (as promised) only made possible by our 4 marshals Kirsty, Bea, Dawn and Jeya – thank you. And thanks again Jax for sorting out the relays. They are not easy. We must find 2 boys and 2 girls where their ages total above a maximum number – 120, 160, 200 and 240. Age is an advantage in this particular game. And under 25 year olds are not allowed to join in. Sorry Henry!
We stayed for the nibbles afterwards and the awarding of the results and it was rather pleasant to mingle with the other teams and chat in dry clothes. Our results are below as are a few photos. I have kept the predicated time with the actual time underneath and in bold. You can see how well you did. Full results of all those who competed are http://results.thanetsc.co.uk/20260418EIM/
Results highlighted below in yellow are gold, in grey are silver and bronze are the funny purply colour.
they are also to be found in our results page .https://www.dealtri.co.uk/swim/swim-results/
some fun photos!