Sonja Skinner, Karen Andrus-Hughes, David Radcliff and Brent Washburne celebrate their Oregon record setting 200 meter medely relay
For the fifth consecutive year, the Oregon City Swim Team and Oregon City Tankers Masters team hosted their dual-sanctioned USMS/USA Swimming meet on March 4th and 5th. The Oregon City Spring Ahead Meet is the one meet held annually in Oregon that plays hosts to both age group swimmers and Masters swimmers. The 12 & under age groupers swim in the morning session and the open/Masters swimmers race in the afternoon session. There were several families in attendance who swam together and I also saw a few coaches being cheered on by their younger athletes while swimming their events. How fun!
One of my favorite swims of the meet was watching 9-year-old Grace Duffy racing the 400 meter freestyle in 6:12. Grace has a beautiful freestyle stroke and held consistent splits throughout the swim, competing well with the other kids in the event, all of whom were at least 5 years older than she!
The Oregon City Tank in action
By far, the biggest story of the meet was the 95-year-old legend Willard (Wink) Lamb. This meet was Willard’s first competition in his new age group (95-99) and he wasted no time demolishing seven world records. Wink set new Masters world records in the 50, 100, 200 and 400 freestyle and the 50, 100 and 200 backstroke. His biggest improvement on a world record was in the 400 SCM Freestyle, where he dropped over 2 minutes off the previous mark of 10:51.93, going 8:13.42.Wow! Other individual Oregon and Zone records were claimed by Karen Andrus-Hughes, Colette Crabbe, Arlene Delmage, and Joy Ward.
Joy Ward is happy about her swimming!
Meet hero Willard Lamb and son Doug sit with Dave and Nancy Radcliff
There were also two relays that set national Masters records:
Women 280-319 400 SC Meter Medley Relay 6:32.56
Oregon, Zone, National
1) Ward, Joy 2) Pierson, Ginger
3) Gettling, Janet 4) Mary Anne Royle
Mixed 320-359 200 SC Meter Free Relay 2:40.07
Oregon, Zone, National
1) Gettling, Janet 2) Ward, Joy
3) Lamb, Willard 4) Radcliff, David
Congratulations, swimmers, and way to represent Oregon! In total, there were 23 Oregon, 20 Zone, 9 U.S. National, and 7 FINA World records set. A full list of records set at the meet can be found here:
http://swimoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Recent-Meets-and-Records.pdf
A huge thanks goes out to Steve Darnell, the OMS records guru, for compiling these records!