Confidence grows

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32778, 1 December 1971, Page 14

Confidence grows

Fears th a t this season might have spelt the end of Canterbury’s two - year reign as the top swimming centre in New Zealand were allayed, by some excellent times at the sockburn' ParkWharenui carnival last Saturday.For several weeks before the carnival there had been ; little, swimming activity in Christchurch, but during this time Competitors were involved in heavy training, the results of which are now coming to the surface. Although they had not tapered their training, many of the swimmers recorded personal best times last week-end, and some Wharenui swimmers did this after their normal daily training

sessions of eight or nine miles. On top of their training schedules, many of the swimmers had had the Worry of school examinabut with these completed this week, training will be uninterrupted until the Canterbury and national championships early next year, , , In the meantime, the younger swimmers will be tapering their training slightly for the national Speedo teleprinter preliminaries this Saturday and the finals two weeks later., Last year Canterbury scored a convincing points win over the other major centres in this contest, and bn present times it. appears the same might happen this year, giving the team confidence for the national agegroup championships at Timaru in February.

The performance of E. Box (Sockbum Park) last Saturday was outstanding, and if he ‘ progresses as much this season as he did last summer he will be very close to qualifying for some national open championship distances, while still swimming in the underl3 grade. '3; Symon . (Sockbum Park) improved several seconds on. his best 400 metres freestyle time and ran G. Dinneson (Wharenui) a close second. Symon also beat his clubmate, R. McCabe, for the first time in several races, although there is never much separating the two. Although the open grade in Canterbury is lacking in depth, the younger, age groups are full or talent, and the keen competition should lead to the emerge ence of a- strong centre team.,-