SWIMMING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4402, 14 March 1941, Page 2

SWIMMING

TE AWAMUTU HIGH SCHOOL. SUCCESS AT HAMILTON. (Contributed by E. W. Bell.) On Wednesday night, a party of boys and girls from the Te Awamutu High School journeyed to Hamilton to try conclusions with members of the Hamilton West Swimming Club. The officials at Hamilton were loud in their praise of the standard of swimming of our boys and girls. That the competition was of a high order will be realised when it is known that the Hamilton competitors included the girl intermediate champion of South Auckland, the girl champions of the Hamilton schools, while the boys included intermediate champions who just failed to lower the South Auckland record for the 440yds in some fine attempts. The first race was 33 l-3yds girls’ freestyle and our three entrants proved to be superior to any of the Hamilton competitors, Te Awamutu winning all three places. This event made our Hamilton friends realise that only the best they had would do and in the succeeding races very good racing was seen. In a similar event for boys a blanket would have covered the three place-getters and Cam. Price swam remarkably well to get third place against the South Auckland champion.

The next event was the 100yds backstroke relay of three girls. Our Te Awamutu girls were in a class by themselves and won comfortably by 15yds. The team entered in that event consisted of Valerie Smith, Colleen Kenealy and Fay Smith and the crowd were thrilled with the speed and grace of the winning team. A similar event for the boys showed again that our girls’ swimming is of a higher order than the boys. Alan Bain on this occasion was narrowly beaten into third place. The two last events produced the best swimming of the evening. In the girls’ freestyle relay of five a-side our team consisted of Patti Bowden, Helen Jourdain, Vai. Smith, Colleen Kenealy and Fay Smith. Patti had to swim against a senior girl but by her grim determination established a lead of Iyds for Te Awamutu. Hjelen gained another 2yds for us, Vai., who was up against -one of Hamilton’s champions, not only held her lead but gained another yard and Colleen also contributed a yard to our lead; our champion Fay thus had a lead of syds and as she had already swum in two previous races swam at a normal pace—about halfway down the bath she realised that her opponent, the South Auckland intermediate girl champion, was gaining slightly and then Fay increased her leg beat and not another inch was gained by Hamilton. Truly a great race, and all Te Awamutu should be proud of their girls. In the last race, the boys’ relay, four a-side, five teams took part, four Hamilton and one Te Awamutu. All our boys Bill Carter, Murray Parkinson, Alan Bain and Cam. Price —swam well and because our first two boys were juniors we started, the third lap in fourth position. Alan, by a great effort, brought us up into third place and Cam., swimming like a champion, enabled Te Awamutu to finish a good second. A great evening.