The Masters South Island Short Course Swimming Championships were held in Blenheim at Stadium 2000 on Friday 18^th and Saturday 19^th July with great success (even with a power blow-out on the generator switchboard for the first hour on Saturday morning which held up the racing). Competitors came from the length of the country; with Masters swimmers from clubs in Auckland through to Invercargill taking part.

As yet unratified by NZMS, there were 8 national records broken:-

                                                                                                        Old Record   New Record

Mens 50-54yrs 800m Freestyle           Steven Prescott           10:56:00          9:22:31

Mens 50-54yrs 200m Freestyle           Steven Prescott             2:12:97          2:09:02

                                                                    Kim Harker                                            2:10:37

                                                                   Craig Beeby                                           2:11:16

Mens 50-54yrs 400m Freestyle           Steven Prescott             4:39:24          4:34:13

Mens 50-54yrs 50m Backstroke         Craig Beeby                     32:37             31:62

Womens 50-54yrs 200m Backstroke  Christine Jones          3:01:48          2:56:09

Womens 50-54yrs 100m Backstroke  Christine Jones          1:24:64          1:23:56

Mens 40-44yrs 50m Butterfly             Brett McGuigan               28:52             28:18

Mens 40-44yrs 50m Freestyle           Brett McGuigan               25:84             25:55

The Blenheim Swimming Club kindly helped out with officiating at the meet, and I believe they enjoyed the event as well ; with being able to see the ‘masters' competing to such a high standard and keeping the light-hearted banter up, even at times, as they were getting onto the starting blocks.

For those swimmers who worried about keeping their goggles on their eyes; local and oldest swimmer of the meet Art van Leeuwen showed this is never a problem after starting his race off the blocks, swimming the event, finishing, then finding his goggles were still on top of his head, where they had been left before the start of the event.

Two of the local swimmers, Geraldine Piper and Barbara Taylor, Blenheim have come through from Adult Learn to Swim, joined Masters this year and now taken part in their first competitive meet, so you definitely do not have to have been a swimmer before.

The final event of the meet was the 6-Pack Relay which was "officially" won by Dunedin/QEII - there was an unfair advantage with ‘home brew' Speights used.

And remember to visit the website:  www.digiproofs.co.nz and order your photos.