Corvallis Aquatic Team hosted our 2015 OMS Association Championships this year that saw 242 swimmers sign up and make the pool boil from April 10th-12th with some very competitive swimming and the always hyper-competitive team relays. The swimmers had a fun time competing and hanging out with their respective teams.
Speaking of teams, the Oregon City Tankers with Head Coach Tim Waud again won the Team Spirit award (for like the 4th or 5th year in a row). Tim knows how to fire up his Tankers! The OCT balloons and beads were also fun to see around the pool deck. Winners of the team divisions this year were Oregon Reign for the Large Teams Division; Multnomah Athletic Club defended their title again in the Medium Teams Division; while the Small Team Division saw some very close competition with Rogue Valley Masters winning the title, just edging out the OPEN Narwhals who took 2nd and the new Sandy Triton Aquatic Team finishing a respectable 3rd. Sunday started out with the Narwhals in 1st, Sandy in 2nd, and RVM 3 points behind them in 3rd. Late in the day RVM made their move and overtook the other teams to take the top spot. Sandy made a darn good showing in their first Association Championships and we look forward to seeing their members in future OMS events.
There were many great individual swims as usual for the meet. Some of the highlights were Dave Radcliff breaking his National Record in the 200 Free and just missing another of his records by hundredths in the 500 Free. Not bad as Dave & Nancy continue their 56th wedding anniversary tour around Oregon! Wink Lamb, our 92 year old youngster also had a few good swims and I heard he may have broken another record or two, but have not confirmed as of this writing. Several swimmers were heard to have set personal records (PR’s), which is what most of us aim to do at our Championships. I would like to also make a shout out to Robin Szmidt who came over from Scotland to compete at our OMS Championships. He is a UK masters swimmer who happened to come to Portland for a business conference and saw we were having our big meet on the prior weekend. He signed up with USMS, OMS, and competed as a member of the OPEN Narwhals. He had a great time, earned a couple 3rd place ribbons, and thoroughly enjoyed our amazing Oregon hospitality as well as the high quality of our competition over here. But we already knew we are the best masters group in USMS-right! Thanks again to the host team and all the Corvallis volunteers and our Officials who make the meet possible!