A great attendance of members last week provided for extremely exciting finals later in the evening.
With heats out of the way the first final to be swum was the 25m Freestyle sprint and the five finalists were Jill Enks, Bruce Durrington, Jack Weatherstone, Andrew Madden and Gary Dixon.
Jill, on handicap, was the first one to enter the water and the lads took chase almost in unison many seconds later.
Three body lengths from the finish Jill still held the lead but as it nearly always happens to female competitors, she was swamped by the strong finishing foursome.
With only fractions of a second separating the first three to touch, Andrew Madden was awarded the win by the judge with Bruce claiming second place and Jack taking third.
Karlie Cleaver was the only female to reach the final of the 50m and her competition was in the form of Dad, Bruce Durrington, Shannon Thompson, David Moon and Damien O’Mahony.
Determined not to be outdone by her opposition, Karlie swam a strong, well thought out race only to be pipped at the finish by David Moon who came in just .08 ahead. However a check on times had both Karlie and David breaking their times so first place was then awarded to Damien with Bruce second and Shannon third.
The final event for the night was a 50m novelty relay and for those reaching this final it was like winning a lottery as nominated times submitted were a complete guess.
The swimmers had to cover the first 25m using a kick board, discard the board and fit a thick band around their legs and swim the remaining 25m using their arms only.
This relay certainly highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of individual swimmers and hopefully the weaknesses will be taken into account when next at training.
Anyway it was Richard Sear and Jack Weatherstone who were triumphant in this relay, swimming just .07 off their time. Coming home in second place was Terry Marsh and Jake Kroehnert, .97 off nominated and Taj O’Mahony and Anne Simkus took third place swimming 1.50 off their nominated time.
Nominations are now being taken for the mid-winter swim in Lismore on July 28. Twelve names are already on the list so if you haven’t nominated, and are interested, please let the club secretary know.
Toni Ensbey