World records highlight 2022 Short Course Nationals in Sydney
Congratulations to all our swimmers on a great effort at National, especially those new members who have joined us in the last 12 months. Well done!
Most of us would agree the event was pretty enjoyable and well run, thanks to lot of work put in by the organising committee, a legion of volunteers and officials, and of course swimmers. Certainly it was good to see so many interstate swimmers given the dislocations of COVID - not everyone wants to chance it in a flying metal tube, or even be among crowds.
As well, a bunch of our swimmers were officials: Marilyn Earp, Julia Atkins, Helen Campbell, Tony Tooher, Cameron Jones and Stuart Meares with your Prez a standby check starter. Should also recognise invaluable help from recent member Dassana Raffel who spent a whole day time keeping on our lane, former member Britta Huttel who volunteered throughout for timekeeping, including on our lane, both hardly taking a break, along with family and friends who helped on timekeeping - it goes without saying (better with) no timekeepers, no recorded times ….
Thanks also to Tony Gallagher our Club Secretary for taking on the load of Captain of the Day and similarly newish member Pat Birgan for helping out Saturday (as he has at other carnivals).
Gordon’s pre-Nationals race training sessions definitely paid off with some great performances. Phil Lindsay’s 100 free comes to mind …
And as you would have guessed from earlier FB posts and emails, the standout was the the provisional World Record 360+ 4x50 Mixed Medley Relay from our three 90+ year olds - Liz Wallis, Diana Moore and Max van Gelder, and ‘Junior’ (John Pagden who valiantly tackled the fly leg) taking 10 secs off the record. Liz, Max and John were foundation members of Warringah in 1982, so great to see them still punching away, 40 years on!
Liz also set a World Record in the 50 Free and National Records for 100 Back, 200 Free, 50 Back, 200 Back, 100 Free and 25 Free [some only fractionally behind World Record times] as well as being part of a 320+ 4x50 FS Women’s team and a 360+ 4x50 Mixed Freestyle team. Liz entered 8 individual events and was Women’s Swimmer of the Meet scoring 5014 FINA points [these are calculated on the swimmer’s 5 best performances relative to world records excl. 25m events] .
Meanwhile let’s not forget Marilyn Earp who in between refereeing also managed a National Record for 50 Fly.
In the final tally, we came a pretty respectable 3rd, just 20 or so points behind North Shore (formerly Hornsby) by around 20 points having lost some swims due to bereavement, COVID and other health matters, and a fair way behind Tuggeranong [see below].
Comparative performance tallies are too hard to compute without going through the entire score sheet and figuring out who actually swam and whether or not they swam all their events, or whether all relay teams were fielded.
While on paper North Shore had fewer entrants, they put in for an average 7.5 swims each vs our 6 each. So the numbers were likely to have it (and some very fast swimmers to boot hence winning the average points score).
Ultimately though, Tuggeranong won out. They theoretically had the numbers of swimmers and swims entered (8.4 each) to win. Tuggeranong’s numbers were also helped along by being the benefactor of free entries for regional swim clubs plus some 2nd claim swimmers.
For our part, as a ’take all comers club’ and all entrants being first claim members it was a very commendable achievement.
Lets’s keep it that way and have fun on the way
Meanwhile, follow this DropBox link to see an uncurated / uncaptioned selection of photos from Nationals. For the most part people are recognisable!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sjvv8amc9i3ch7z/AAC3MBnozbToe_PbLSnlea4Ya?dl=0
Hopefully, between the photos from your President, Bridget Cook and Christine Geftakis most of our entered swimmers appear, although a bit thin on the ground for Saturday . Apologies if we didn’t capture everyone in between swimming. As well there’s one or two photos from other sources to round out the collection.
Also, for anyone who missed them, our Facebook posts on Nationals can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/474744665936417/posts/4980470658697106/?d=n
https://www.facebook.com/474744665936417/posts/4982097035201135/?d=n
https://www.facebook.com/474744665936417/posts/4983295775081261/?d=n
https://www.facebook.com/474744665936417/posts/4988595411217964/?d=n