Long Distance Swimming


The Oregon Club had a jump in participation and a strong performance in the 2014 USMS One-Hour Postal National Championships, held in January in your local pool.  Our overall participation was short of our record, but there were many good swims.  The Oregon Club was runner-up in the Large Club category to Indy Masters by 50 (out of 376,000) yards—in other words, we were ONE SWIMMER SHORT in winning a national club title!

Oregon Participation summary:

  • 104 Oregon swimmers entered the event, way down from previous levels.
  • 54 women & 50 men swam and entered, relatively equal for a change (the gals have repeatedly outpaced in the past few years).
  • 15 Oregon local teams were represented. Well done, teams, but we’re still missing participation from a few of you, and we’re still missing representative participation from many of you.

Congratulations to…

  • Our THREE individual National Champions (USMS Long Distance All-American)—Jayna Tomac, Dave Radcliff & Willard Lamb;
  • Our THIRTEEN other individual swimmers who made the top ten (and thus received medals).
  • Our TWO National Individual Record breakers—Dave Radcliff & Willard Lamb;
  • Our FIVE relay team National Champions (USMS Long Distance Relay All-Americans);
  • Our ELEVEN other relay teams who made the top six (and thus received medals);
  • Our ONE USMS Relay Record breaking team—the Men’s 75+ relay of Willard Lamb, Dick Weick, & Dave Radcliff, who broke the old record (also held by Oregon) by just thirty yards.
  • Our THREE relay teams that smashed Oregon One-Hour Relay Records;
  • Our TWO swimmers, Jayna Tomac (4865 yards) and Hardy Lussier (5455 yards), who topped the Oregon women’s and men’s categories respectively, Jayna for the second and Hardy for the fourth consecutive year;
  • Our 24 swimmers whose performances qualified or moved them up on the Oregon All-Time Top Twelve list for the One-Hour Swim, a list becoming more challenging to make each year;
  • Our Oregon Club, who placed second in the Large Club category behind Indy Masters (fourth overall also behind New England Masters and Davis Masters;
  • Everyone who participated!

There’s a bonus—104 Oregon-registered swimmers have completed the first of the three legs of the Oregon Postal Participation Award.  These swimmers just have to swim & enter both the 5 or 10-km postal and the 3000or 6000-yard postal later this year to snag this award.  You’ve seen the patches—now you can earn your own.  Of course, the truly compulsive swimmers—like me—plan to complete all four remaining postal swims this year to earn the national participation award.

Where do we go from here?  Keep on swimming—the essence of the postal events is to do them.  Next up are the 5 & 10-km postal national championships, to be done between May 15 and September 15 in a long course pool.  This postal event is hosted this year by Central Oregon Masters Aquatics, so your entry will go to help one of our own local teams!

Look for the full 2015 Oregon LMSC results in this Aqua Master.

Good luck and good swimming!

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