Victorian Long Course Champs 2015

Victorian Long Course Champs 2015

Eight Belugas plus our team mascot Finn ventured out to the Victorian Long Course Championships – our third meet outing, and first time competing at MSAC! There was a great buzz at the venue, and the new thrill of seeing our names and times come up on the giant electronic scoreboard.

chad_dive
Chad Nash (in ‘tiger’ togs) literally gets off to a flying start …

With a heady combination of solid training, high motivation, and mountains of sugary supplements, expectations were running high for some new club benchmarks, and the team didn’t disappoint. Once the dust settled on 29 appearances in 11 events, 18 new club records had been set, with numerous personal bests. OK, so nine of these were the first time anyone had swum in the event/age category, but the other nine did better existing club records! Well done to everyone for a fantastic set of performances: Anthony (1 club record), Jaye, Paul, Roy and Vito (2 records each), Chad and Tracy (3 records) and Raoul (5 records).

relay-boys
Men’s 4x50m relay team: Anthony Ferguson, Raoul Mulder, Roy Solterbeck and Chad Nash.

Amidst all the excitement there was heartbreak too, with Roy and Paul both DQ’d in the 200 IM for illegal turning manoeuvres (this after Roy had just shattered the existing club record time by over 4 seconds), and Paul managed a second disqualification in the 100 breaststroke when (in what can perhaps most kindly be described as a ‘brain snap’) he launched into an enthusiastic tumble turn at the 50m mark. Things seem to brighten up for Paul when he won a spot prize voucher, but in the process of collecting it he forgot to marshall for the 100 freestyle and so added a ‘no show’ to his tally for the night.

lc-trio
Winners are grinners … Vito Muré, Jaye Dowling and Paul Turner

Performance of the day belonged to Vito Muré, who pulled two remarkable swims out of his hat for the 50m and 100m freestyle, shattering his personal best in the 100 free by over 2 seconds with a sizzling 1’18. 23. Well done Vito!

A very big thank-you to Finn for coming to join us on the day, cheering the swimmers along, asking great questions about the proceedings and being excellent company throughout the long day.

Full results can be found here. We can’t wait for the next meet!

LC Championships points table
Name Points
Raoul Mulder 39
Chad Nash 27
Tracy Cameron 22
Vito Muré 19
Roy Solterbeck 19
Jaye Dowling 18
Paul Turner 15
Anthony Ferguson 8
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