South Island Masters Long Course Championships 2004

Swam 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle at the Long Course Championships organised by the QEII Masters club I train with. Conditions were just about perfect - I was swimming in a pool I train at twice a week, my diving seems ok, my start was actually not as slow as usual and there was no turn to do on the 50m. These were ideal conditions to beat 30 seconds but I failed fairly dismally with a 31.77 for the 50m and 1:16.19 for the 100m. I must conclude I'm a bit unfit at the moment!

Oh well, the dinner was nice afterwards! Actually as the only competitor from the UK I got a special prize of a QE2 t-shirt for taking part. Needless to say the masters swimming scene out here is just as friendly as the scene in the UK! Mind you, they were amused at my use of the word 'Gala' to describe the event - they told me a gala is a fair! NZ swim meets are called "carnivals" (no hint of 'fair' there then).

The competition overall was very well run with typical kiwi style pitching in to sort out food for the judges and all that stuff. Excellent fun, which we agreed was the main thing.