BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 17, 17 December 1937, Page 7

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

SWIMMERS’ PERFORMANCES. Biographical notes of some of the selected swimmers are as follow: — Miss Islay Purdie is a. member of the Kiwi Amateur Swimming Club, and has been swimming barely lour years. Her outstanding success is due largely to the development of her natural style by her coach, Miss M. Boulton (now Mi's A. Raper, of Auckland) who was then ladies’ captain of tho Iviwi . Club. Miss. Purdie won all the Otago intermediate girls’ freestyle titles in 1936, and at Hamilton in tho same year carried off the New Zealand intermediate girls’ 100 and 220yds championships in the record times of 64 4-5 see, and 2.50 3-5, respectively. Her 100yds time also equalled the New Zealand ladies’ record, established by Miss Marie Farquhar, of Auckland, in 1933. In 1936 at Dunedin Miss Purdie won the 50yds ladies’ invitation scratch race at the national senior championships.. In 1937 she won all the Otago intermediate and senior froc-style titles from 100yds to 440yds. At Auckland a little later in the year she established a. ladies’ frec-styie 22Uyds record of 2.40, won'the 110yds invitation race in 1.13, and the 50vds race in 29 4-sscc. In addition to being a champion swimmer, Miss Purdie is a splendid basketball player. She is 18 years ot age and is a typiste by occupation. Miss Mona Leydon has achieved championship rank in spite of the disability ol a leg crippled in childhood by infantile paralysis. She was not successful as an intermediate, but in her first season as a senior she made great improvement, winning at Napier in 1933 the 220yds and 440yds national ladies’ iitlcs. She retained the 440yds title at Christchurch in the following year, but was beaten by Miss Nancy Ludlow, of Auckland, in the 220yds event. However, in 1935 and 1936, Miss Leydon was again champion at both distances, and last season, when the New Zealand championships were abandoned owing to the epidemic of ' infantile paralysis her time for 440yds was the fastest in New Zealand. Early in 1935 she wenl to Australia, winning the 880vds and cue mile championships of Now South Wales. She was second in a 220yds scratch race. A good back-stroke exponent, she won the national title at this style of swimming in 1935. Miss Leydon was tho former holder of the N.Z. ladies’ record of 2.45 4-5 for 220yds (a time since beaten by Miss Purdie) and at present she is the holder of tho national records of 5.46 2-5 for 440vds, 12.23 for 880yds and 2.45 4-5 for 200 metres. She is 21 years of age. Miss Gwen Rix is a member of the Dunedin Amateur Swimming Club. She won tlie Otago ladies’ diving championship in 1935-3b-37. In 1935 she_ was run ner-up in the New Zealand ladies’ diving championship and in tho following year she won the title. Earlier in her career she met with much success in breaststroke, backstroke and free style swimming, representing Otago at Lower lluti in 1932, at Invercargill in 1933 and at Timaru in 1935 in the New Zealand junioi ami intermediate championships. She has held Otago junior, intermediate and senior free style titles. She was recommended to take up diving seriously by Mr Harry Tickle, then Australian diving champion when he visited Dunedin at the end of 1934. Miss Rix is 19 years of ago and a typiste by occupation. Miss Joyce Macdonald is only 15 years of age. She is a member of the Mtirihiku Club and its coached by Mr H. G. Smith, a former Canterbury representative swimmer and water polo player. Last season Miss Macdonald won the Southland intermediate 100yds free stylo title in 69soe, 220vds in 2.56 2-5 and 100yds backstroke in 79 4-ssec, and last June established a New Zealand intermediate gills’ backstroke record of 77 4-seec, only 1. 2-ssec slower than Miss Ena Stoekloy’s senior national record. On October 21 last she swam 88soc in a 110yds backstroke trial, and in an invitation event at the Kiwi Club’s carnival in Dunedin on November 24 last ohe won the 110yds backstroke _in 85 l-ssec, four-fifths of a second outside the national senior record. In that swim slm passed the 100yds mark in 7b 4-ssoc. Miss Macdonald is a pupil at the Southland Technical' College. P. Hanan started his swimming in the Morrinsvillc district. When he moved to Auckland he soon attracted attention u» a, fine sprinter. In the 1935-36 season lie was third in the 100yds championship of Auckland, and later was runner-up to R. B. Frankin'!rn. of Auckland, for flic New- Zealand title at Dunedin. A «d

qiiencb of victories in Auckland championships distinguished liis swimming last season. He won the 50vds, 100yd*, 220yds and 440vds titles. He finished first in the 110yds scratch race at an interprovincial carnival in Auckland last Easter, and, in doing so, broke R. B. Frankhain’s national record for 100 metres bv one-fifth of a second, taking 60 4-ssce. He reeoiiily unofficially bettered Frard-bam’s lOO.vds record of 54 3-ssec by two-fifths of a see ond. Hnnan. who is 22 years of age, is a newspanerman. C. Cliff started competitive swimming in 1928. He lias won many Canterbury junior and intermediate tree-style championships, and he was also, successful in senior frec-style provincial champienships. It was not until the end of last _ season that, he look up haeketroke swimming seriously, coached by A. T. F. Stekes. Tn training during the winter he bettered times with which Mathioson had established New Zealand records and hi a "time tT : al on December Ihe broke Mnthiesnn’s 100 metres record by 2-ssoc, returning 71 4-ssec. Cliff is 21 years of age.-