Sunday July 6

A chilly morning greeted those braving the drive to Swan Park Recreation Centre for the Swan Hills carnival: a novelty short course event complete with 25m races and 4×25 relays. It was a great chance to pick up some rarely set State records. Other clubs at the carnival included Carine, Gosnells, Maida Vale, Mandurah, Riverton and Snappers. The pool filtration system was creating very strong currents in lanes 3 and 5 and these weren’t used for racing, so it was a weird combination of racing lanes with these central lanes vacant.

First off were the 200s, and in the IM Sally Bell and Frank Glass powered to first places, and Trish Burton managed a more controlled race, so she wasn’t feeling physically ill for the next couple of hours. Next up was the 200 Breaststroke where Anna Brockman, Anthony Dunne and Richard Fox were the only swimmers in their age groups, so it was easy picking for top points.

Then was the 100 Choice and many of the Claremont swimmers decided to swim a form stroke, unlike most of the other clubs. Lesley Chute outpaced some close competition from Snappers to get the first of her 2 top placings. Newcomer to carnivals Chloe Ross – complete with family cheer squad, was on the way to the first of her 3 first places (youth and speed are wonderful things) with an impressive 1:16. There’s no way you’re leaving the A lane with times like that! Also on her way to 3 first placings was Elena Nesci clocking a 1:10. Natalie Roberts swam a tidy breaststroke. Sally Bell swam fly and still got as first place. Anna had to dash and was gone after a tidy freestyle. In the men’s 100m there was excitement everywhere you looked. Chris Roberts was DQ’ed for an alleged false start (where the starter seemed to be the issue, not the swimmers), but had his time re-instated – and no wonder he wanted as an official time at 1:06. There was a battle royal between Duncan Booth (free) and Dean Stockwell (IM) swimming side by side: Dean won on the touch 1:14.44 to Duncan’s 1:15.07. Patrick Verryn came oh-so-close to going under that elusive 1 minute barrier with 1:00.91. Also down in the 1:0-somethings was Anthony Dunne at 1:03. Our resident Thorpedo - Sam McLennan was in his usual place: ‘way out front’ and made a 57 look easy. Please show me how! Gary Bradley had to be content with a close second, before resuming normal service of first places in his 50 and 25. Richard Hughes took the opportunity to swim a 100 IM. Ray Ploughman, swimming for Claremont for the first time, swam the first of his 3 freestyle events. It’s good to see some of our new ‘second club’ members coming along and getting into the Claremont carnival atmosphere.

Once the long distance events were out of the way it was down to the 50s, and then the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them, 25s. Keith Fletcher did the first of his 2 breaststroke swims (surely your free isn’t so bad you can’t knock out a 100 of it?). The men’s 40-44 age group was the most popular/competitive with 8 swimmers, 5 of who belonged to Claremont – and in this age group we had swimmers at both ends – the fastest, and the tail enders - those doing form strokes. The 50 was also the first outing for “Henry” (aka Pete) Gardner, who will be pleased to know the results have his name correct, rather than his second cousin’s name as was shown in the program. “Henry” swam a respectable 50 Breast, despite still carrying a nagging injury – or was that just his excuse for not coming to training?

Finally – the moment (quite literally) everyone had been waiting for – the 25s. With all 4 strokes on offer, and very few state records existing, there were many chances for inaugural state records. Rock up and swim and you’ll set a record – which is exactly what many did. Expect the 25m records to be handed out like confetti at an up coming club night. There would be too many attempt to list here, but go and have a look at the results portal on the Masters Swimming National website www.portal.aussi.org.au to see what the old records were. Your name will be up in lights in the not too distant future. BTW it was announced that 38 records had been set during the carnival.

The 4×25 relays were fast and furious. It would appear that Claremont set state records in 5 of the 6 relay swims – all of which Claremont won. Well done to all the relay swimmers.

With such impressive performances across the board it was no real surprise that Claremont won the carnival with 236 points and second were Maida Vale on 192.

It was a sad occasion too, as this was the winding up of the Swan Hills club who were down to a single member: Sandra Mutch. Sandra effectively ran this carnival, doing all the recording, and she has been a great contributor to other carnivals and state swims. We hope she can find a club to move to. It’s always sad to see clubs fold, and we should be thankful that our numbers are swelling.

The short course racing was certainly fun, and its put the fire in the belly for a few. This year’s State Champs is short course, and is being held at Challenge on August 23/24. I don’t the first placings will be so easy to come by, and those newly won records might only be short standing. Get them framed now!

Richard Hughes

Carnivals, Features