Report by Jon McRae
After a short break from the NSW Short Course Championships last October in Woy Woy, the Vikings were back at the Woy Woy pool on the Central Coast, NSW on Saturday, 11 May 2013 for the Ettalong BPS Meet. Only this time, the weather was cool with light showers most of the afternoon – first time it was not like a sauna for Scott Makin and the other chilled spectators, including Brenda Day’s sister Diane and her husband Barry.
Only a handful of Vikings, but they managed some reasonable results, with four individual swims each.
Caroline Makin gained a first place in her 200m Freestyle in 2:40.51 and was happy to get a relatively low 39 seconds for 50m Butterfly with her shoulders intact, despite the recurring knot that reared it’s ugliness again that day.
Katrina Burgess was very happy with a swim that picked up first in her 200m Breaststroke in 3:34.89, a first in the 50m Breaststroke and not far behind Caroline for her other two swims.
Brenda Day tackled her favourite (not many other’s favourite!) – the 200m Butterfly – in the same time as Nationals and then changed to the unfamiliar role of sprinter for 25m Freestyle and a couple of 50’s.
Jon McRae provided an excellent demonstration of the old ‘wind up’ start for his 25m Freestyle sprint and demonstrated why this start technique is now obsolete and there is “room for improvement in that area, especially on 25m sprints!”. Jon recorded his first time under 3 minutes for 200m Freestyle and put in his first time racing 25m sprints in a “good many years”.
Unfortunately, Gary Stutsel could not attend the meet as planned, and our relay team was only a scratch job with no point score, but was good exercise anyway including a ringer from the Castle Hill club taking up Gary’s leg in the 4x50m Mixed Freestyle relay.
Jon spent a lot of the day timekeeping including a stint as acting Chief Timekeeper , gaining excellent experience for his official qualification and during which Jenny Whiteley smashed another world record in Breaststroke.
“Our” Opal Eddy managed a couple of first places and the Vikings also watched ex-collaborator, Adrian Davis, now swimming for Port Macqarie club, who excelled with four firsts in his swims.
Full results are available.
