SWIMMING NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10653, 14 May 1895, Page 3

SWIMMING NOTES.

(by NATATOB IN " CANTERBURY TIMES.”] H. Piaacke, the young Dutch swimmer who recently swam from the Queen Street Wharf, Auckland, to the Devonport Wharf (throe miles and a bal£)for a wager of £25, well under one hour and three-quarters, andwhofollowedfchia up by heating Bines in a three-mile open sea swim from Rangitoto Reef to the Cheltenham beach, is at present in Wellington, and is anxious to get up a match to swim the Strait. If a wager or purse is got up ha will attempt to accomplish the feat." Piaacke, who is twenty-five years of age, is of magnificent physique, and has been a champion of his native city of Amsterdam at diving, and back and breast stroke swimming, for a number of years. The Balmain (New South Wales) Club has 190 paid up members. H. Heath, the Victorian amateur champion (says the Sydney Bulletin), was born "in Geelong in 1867 and waa able to swim in 1870. As a boy, he competed in numberless events, o? which he won the great majority. His first win was made at tbo age of seven, bub it was not until 1883 that he began to keep a record of hia performances. Since that year he has finished first twenty-two times (fifteen times from scratch), second twenty-four times, third nine times. Heath is a man of enormous chest and arm-development, and possesses lung-power equal to that of nearly two average men. At a recant council meeting of the New South Wales Swimming Association, Mr Q. Fenner moved that trophies other than medals be awarded to winners of championship events. Commenting upon this “ Natator ” writes as follows in the Referee: —Medals are not useful in any way, and there are men who look with disdain upon the wearing of such pendants to their watch chains. They are too common to bs ornamental, and as there is no use to which they can be put, why persist in forcing them upon paoplo. It is high time our amateurs wero allowed to choose, within certain limits, what pleased them heat, and then they would be more anxious to compete and better satisfied with their prizes. In tho instance under notice it was discovered that, although there waa nothing in the Amateur Swimming Association's code of rules providing that medals only should be given for championship events, there was a binding agreement, which wasn’t made sufficiently clear, between New Zealand and this colony, whereby both Associations were pledged to give none other but the class of trophy mentioned for premiership contests. Where for such a hard and fast rule I exists is difficult to discover,.