Opawa Club Produced Two World Record Holders

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30901, 6 November 1965, Page 11

Opawa Club Produced Two World Record Holders

international against the 1961 Kangaroos, succeeding G. S. Farrar (Waikato). This was the first of 11 successive tests until he was injured before the third test against Australia on tour in 1963. He formed a valuable half-back combination with J. A. Bond (Canterbury) in Britain in 1961 and was selected as vice-captain for the 1963 tour.

Snowden played In the three tests against France in 1964 and captained Auckland, North Island and New Zealand (against Australia) this year.

TMIE names and deeds of 1 New Zealand's great Rugby players, cricketers and athletes live on but the noted swimmers of the past dwell in comparative obscurity. This is a pity, for the Dominion has had some swimmers whose efforts were remarkable in their day, and are worthy of long standing recognition. The seventy-fifth anniversary of the formation of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association is a good time to recall the days when there were two world record breakers resident in Christchurch. Both were from the now defunct Opawa club, both were 18 years old when they achieved a world mark for the first time and both were subsequently Olympic Games finalists. Miss Gwitha Shand, later Mrs D. Waghorn, who died three years ago, was the world record-holder for the women's 440 yd freestyle during 1922-23. Carl Atkinson, now an alert 73-year-old living in Napier, held the world mark for 220 yd men’s breaststroke from 1910 to 1913.

Throughout her career, Miss Shand was noted for the strength and determination she brought to her swimming. She won her first race—a 50yd schoolgirls’ event in 47sec —at the age of 13 but two years later, in 1919, she became senior and junior national 100 yd champion. It was in the quarter-mile event, however, that she made her name with a series of world record breaking performances that began at the national championships in Wellington in February, 1922. Her winning time for 440yds, 6min 26.45ec, was almost 4sec better than the mark established by Miss E. Bleibtrey (U.S.A.) in 1919. In October of the same year Miss Shand brought the record down to 6mfn 14.4 sec at Honolulu. “ . . . Miss Shand swam spectacularly, holding a fast pace to the 400 yd mark and then sprinting,” the cables proclaimed. “She was not winded at the finish.” On her return to New Zealand, Miss Shand was the

star attraction at carnivals in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. She was also accorded a civic reception in Christchurch. In her second overseas visit that summer Miss Shand won the Australian 220 yards and 440 yards titles at Sydney and brought her world mark down to 6min 9.2 sec. Her efforts led to a concerted move to have her included in New Zealand’s Olympic Games team to Paris in 1924. But the haphazard and uncertain method of meeting the cost —until the eleventh hour there was no assurance that she and her fellow Canterbury swimmer, E. C. Heard, would be sent—militated against successful training. In Paris she had a bad cold and failed to reproduce her New Zealand form. She reached the final of the 400 metres freestyle, but was unable to complete the distance because of her cold. Later she swam for the British Empire against the United States in London, gaining second place in the 440 yd. The English-born Atkinson seemed destined for a successful career in swimming from the time he won his first race at the age of four. His father was an English champion; Carl Atkinson himself became a British schoolboys’ chain-

pion. After thr«e years in New Zealand he returned to England in 1911 and represented Britain at the Olympic Gaines in Stockholm in 1912, swimming fifth in the final of the 200 metres breaststroke. “I could have won that race, I suppose,” he recalled in Christchurch recently. “But circumstances prevented me training until about two weeks before the games.”

This is an incredible admission when the 11-months-of-the-year programme of the colossus of the 1964 Olympic swimming events, D. Schollander, is considered. But if an unfit Atkinson could reach an Olympic final, how good was he with proper preparation behind him? In the graving dock at Auckland on February 19, 1910, Atkinson took 3.6 sec off the world 220 yd breaststroke figure of 3min 14sec, held by the West Australian, P. Matson.

“He won with such ridiculous ease that one wonders What he might have done had he been pressed,” said a contemporary report. At Kaiapoi in January, 1913, Atkinson brought his world mark down to 3min 9.2 sec and during the national meeting in Wanganui the following month he achieved a startling 3min ssec—with his closest rival 30yds away. But for World War I, Atkinson might have risen to even greater heights. As it was, he returned from service overseas to win further New Zealand titles in breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle. Before his active career ended at the age of 45 he had won at every distance in every style on the national programme, captained the champion Canter-

bury water polo team and had been a member of winning surf and still water life-saving teams at New Zealand meetings. His long plunge record still stood when the event was deleted from the record books. New Zealand can claim another world record-breaker in M. E. Champion, the great freestyle swimmer who flourished in the early years of this century. He was a member of the Australasian 4 x 200 metres freestyle relay team which set a world mark of lOmin 11.2 sec in winning the Olympic event at Stockholm in 1912.

Champion, a giant in stature as well as performance, underlined the ability that brought him 32 New Zealand titles with three notable wins in English waters. He died in 1939.

Of this trio of recordbreakers, Atkinson remains as the link between today's progressive era and the palmy days of the past. He deserves a place of honour at the national championships in Napier next February.

The wheedling flight of M. B. Poore continues to deceive and defeat. Already he has taken 11 wickets cheaply this season and needs only six more to reach 400 in the senior grade. Poore has a fine record as an all-rounder in 16 seasons for St. Albans. His batting aggregate is well over 5000, and although he has failed in his last three innings, he started the season in very good form. Poore’s performance against East Christchurch - Shirey in 1961-62 remains one of the greatest in 60 years of club cricket. In that game Poore had an innings of 159 and took 14 wickets for 67 runs—eight for 41 and six for 26.