GOLDEN SWIMS FOR SCOT – TWO WINS IN DAY

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33447, 31 January 1974, Page 7

GOLDEN SWIMS FOR SCOT - TWO WINS IN DAY

Two superb swims by the Scot, David Wilkie, gave him the distinction of winning two gold medals in one day at yesterday’s Games swimming.

Wilkie took the 200 m medley, easily, from his English rival, Brian Brinkley, but in the 200 m breaststroke, for which he holds the world record, he was given a tremendous race by David Leigh (England).

A student at the University of Florida, Wilkie arrived in New Zealand only four days before the start of the Games.

“I knew that travelling here would be tiring but I did not think it would take me eight or nine days to acclimatise.

“My times for the breaststroke and the medley showed that I was not properly acclimatised when I swam them," he said. In the breaststroke heats Wilkie qualified sixth in 2min 30.795ec, compared with his winning time in the final of 2min 24.4 sec—a new Games record.

Games records In the medley, he produced a time of 2min 14.395ec in his heat, qualifying fifth, and reduced this by 4.2Bsec in the final to claim another Games record. Wilkie never looked in danger of defeat in the medley. He trailed Brinkley at the end of the butterfly length but, surprisingly, made this up in the backstroke, and led by a length at the start of the breaststroke. His class in this stroke sealed the issue. With smooth, fluid strokes, he surged ahead by three body lengths, and maintained this lead in the 50m freestyle. The breastroke final was not as clear cut. Wilkie always seemed to have the field at his mercy, but when he increased his rating after 100 m, Leigh went with him. The Englishman was ahead at the last turn and Wilkie confessed later that he got “a bit of a surprise” to see him there. The world champion in-

creased his rate once more to take a half-length lead, but in the last 15m he tired and Leigh was within an arm’s length of him at the finish.

The race was a triumph for the British, as another Englishman, Paul Naisby, was third.

Busy mascot But it was Australia nearly all the rest of the way. It won three events out of four in last evening’s finals — including five of the six medals in the first two individual events. This caused a problem in the camp, for the team had only one mascot. So Gail Neall was dispatched to the interview room to retrieve the koala bear from John Kulasalu, the 17-year-old winner of the men’s 400 m freestyle, for Sonya Gray to carry to the dais after winning the women’s 200 m freestyle. Later the koala had another trip to the dais with the victorious Australian men’s 4 x 200 m freestyle relay team of Kulasalu, Michael Wenden, Stephen Badger and Robert Nay.

Fastest time Miss Gray was only o.7sec outside Shane Gould’s world record for 200 m; it was Miss Gray’s second gold medal of the Games. “If I go on in swimming I think I could break the record,” she said. “I have improved a lot in a short time. My best time in Australia was 2min 6.9 sec; tonight I did 2min 4.25ec.” Miss Gray won from her 13-year-old team mate, Jenny Turrall, who beat her for the New South Wales 200 m title. Brad Cooper’s gold medal predictions came unstuck when he was beaten by

Kulasalu in the 400 m. The winner, a lanky boy of 6ft 3in, is of Jugoslav descent but last evening he did Australia proud. He distributed his effort well over the eight lengths and won on his merits from the faster finishing

Treffers fourth Badger completed an Australian sweep of the medals, but he had only o.2sec to spare from the New Zealander, Mark Treffers, who produced an exceptional time of 4min s.Bsec. This was 6sec faster than his previous best and it bettered Brett Naylor’s national record by 3.7 sec. Naylor was fifth.

“I went hard for the first 100 m and then looked up and saw that Brad was with me,” Kulasalu said. "So there was nothing for it but to go harder.”

Cooper had no excuses to make. "It just wasn’t my race —and that’s all there is to say. I wasn’t confident but I thought I had a chance. The Australian victory in the relay was built on a strong forward thrust by Nay in the second leg, followed by a splendid swim of Imin 56.55ec by Badger. This gave the celebrated Wenden an easy passage in the anchor leg.