SYDNEYSIDE WITH JANET PARR young swimmers scoop the pool

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33424, 4 January 1974, Page 5

SYDNEYSIDE WITH JANET PARR young swimmers scoop the pool

While Noel Coward’s comments on the inadvisability of, Miss Worthington’s taking up the stage as a career may be all very well, they do not suggest what the young lady might do instead.

Energetic competitive sport may not have been the urbane gentleman’s thing. Yet he might realistically have advised Mrs Worthington to put her daughter in the swimming pool —- and the earlier the better. Australia’s so - called “water babies’’ seem to get younger and younger — girls as well as boys. At 17, Shane Gould has retired from competitive swimming and turned professional. But there always seems to be a new batch of potential world beaters coming up. The latest pair, Jenny Burrell and Sally Lockyer, are 13 and 14 respectively. Jenny Burrell has not only already swum the 1500 metres freestyle faster than anyone else in the world — she is the youngest swimmer to take a world record. Her friend, rival, and train;ing partner, Sally Lockyer, swam the same record time alongside her at the Birrong pool in Sydney but couldn’t claim a record because Jenny Burrell touched home a little finger’s length in front. AT THE GAMES Bracketed together, the • two “swim girls” suddenly ] found themselves famous. [ iJenny Burrell found herself described as the “six stone j world champ.” and “the girl ( I with the Liza Minelli eyes.” But Sail}' Lockyer has beat- ( ien Jenny many times in ' Competitive swimming, and ; I is confidently expected to do J it again. ( Christchurch will see both < i of them at the Com- 1 monwealth Games; and their < coach, Forbes Carlile, has al- < ready predicted that Sally t Lockyer can win the 400 ( metres individual medley if t she keeps on improving. s

i Training with the two ! girls is Virginia Rickard, an- . other 14-year-old with • records behind her. And Vic- ■ toria has an up-and-coming • swimmer, Lyn Celotti, who ■ is only 12. Lyn may be voung, but . according to her coach, Jack ; Foster, she has the ability to • become the fastest remale butterfly swimmer in the 1 world. But if fame lies ahead for any. of these present J ‘water babies”, will it necessarily bring fortune with it? News, that Shane Gould had signed a five-year $50,000 contract to promote swimwear raised suggestions that she should have been able to cash in a lot more on the three gold medals she won at Munich. Mark Spitz became a millionaire reputedly on the strength of his seven. SPORTSWOMEN’S EARNINGS While it was conceded that $lO,OOO a year for five years was not bad money for a 17-year-old, comparison was inevitably made with, what top women are earning in other sports. Tennis players such as Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong earn 10 times as much in a year, with large payments for things' like endorsements extra. Margaret Court, who withdrew from the Bonne Bell international tennis series in Sydney when she found she was expecting a second child, earned $205,000 last year, and it was said she 1 would probably have made $250,000 this year. Mrs ' Court was quoted as saying that money could not be equated with her baby, and that she'would be happy to spend the next eight months preparing for it — and that would be worth much more than $250,000. Prizes for professional women golfers seem to be • increasing, with the American circuit reportedly rewarding And while it- ie- n n

) ■ likely that women will evei • [ break into such money 1 [ spinning sports as baseball -[football, basketball, or let ;i hockey — at least profes > I sionally — there is a chanct [that they may be able tc Hearn a living as jockeys. :l All the same, Shane Gouk > seems happy to have made ;|her choice and to be able t( ‘[enjoy — now that she is finished with the dailv train'ling grind before and aftei ■[school and the tensions ol “competitive swimming — ■some of the other things she I has found she likes doing. ’ such as surfboard and horse 1 riding, tennis, and some social life. The trouble is that not even a so-called “water baby” knows just what sort of a baby is treading water behind her. Already there is news of a little blonde who, swimming with a handicap, tackles four races at the Queenscliff Pool each Saturday and often beats swimmers a lot older. Variously labelled the “superfish” and the “superkid”, little Michelle Bright is not another Shane Gould—or so her mother is reported to have said. And Mrs Bright will not encourage her to be one, seeing problems in the time and dedication needed to train. For the moment, it seems that they do not worry Michelle — she loves swimming. In fact, her only, problem, it is said, is that as she is only four she can’t always remember what her starting number is.