IX World Masters

I played around by lumping all of the results together to come up with a different perspective. Although there were 2 Team events, (Mixed 200 Freestyle & Medley Relays), I ignored them and used only the results from the 32 Individual events. Anyone who was disqualified was also not included.

In the individual events, 796 men and 654 women competed to obtain 7,594 individual times after swimming a combined distance of 1,365.6 Km in a total time of 15.35 days. Age didn't matter except you had to be at least 25 (there were 6 Men & 8 Women at this age) and the oldest was a sprightly Colin Cable at 92. Interestingly, the average age was 52 but the official results also revealed that 8 participants changed their age up to 4 times with each race – take Kraaijeveld Lanesi for example. She was listed as being 65, 66, 67 and finally 69 years old in the W65-69 age group for 100M Back, 100 Breast, 200 IM & 200 Free.

There were 42 countries represented and the top participating countries were the hosts (506), Japan (359), Australia (312), USA (180) & UK (154). There were 701 participating teams with the largest contingents representing Manly/Aust (38), QE11/NZ (38), JP5/Japan (34), NS1/NZ (31) & HC4/NZ (28).

On family matters, there were at least 80 husband/wife teams where both were participating and from their ages, at least 10 husbands were a good 10-25 years older than their wife (better than the national average?). For family participation, there appeared to be at least 3 father/sons, 2 mother/daughters and even a pair of brothers.

So who was the most popular? The top surnames were Smith (57), Edwards (43), Walker (38), Clarke (34) & Sato (30) and the top handles were John (150), Peter (124), David (63), Margaret (60) & Helen/Robert (55 each). Whilst John Smith did not attend, it would have been confusing if your name were Brenda Walker or Michael Johnston since there were two each of them (47yrs & 64 yrs; 32 yrs & 52 yrs respectively). Incidently, Brenda (the younger version) and I had a memorable breakfast on the last day of the events which exemplified an enjoyable 'Masters meeting'.

For consistency, 15 enjoyed a clean sweep to obtain 1st place in all 5 of their events, 13 got 1st place in 4 events, 9 got 2nd place in 4 events, 4 got 3rd place in 4 events and hard luck to Toshe Yoshida (W70-74) who was placed 4th in 4 events and 5th in her 5th event. Perhaps the consistency award should go to Marjoljin Thomas (W40-44) for her four 12th placings in 50M & 100M Butterfly & Freestyle and 13th in 50M Backstroke.

Looking through the events, you would not be hard pressed to notice that the distance events of 400M & 800M Freestyle would give a skewed interpretation of average times. Whilst only 12% of participants entered these 2 events, 4 out of 5 entered both events and they contributed to 40% of the total distance swam. The age groups that swam the longest distances were 45-49 for men and W30-34 for Women but as their age increased, Men reduced their average distance swum (swam in shorter events) but Women increased it. As expected, the younger age groups favoured short distances and after freestyle, the second most popular stroke was breastroke for men and backstroke for women.

The outstanding performances were from Bonnie Pronk (W60-64) who set 5 new World records whilst Jane Asher (W70-74), Pamela Hutchings (W65-69), Caroline Krattli (W40-44) & Barry Young (M60-64) set 4 new World records each. The Men's World records for 65-69 100M Breaststroke was broken 3 times and the World record was broken twice in 5 other events.

If points had been assigned to teams (visualize 10 points for 1st place and decreasing to 1 point for 10th place), the three most successful teams (discounting 1 & 2 man teams) would have all been from the USA. 1-SDS had 13 members who obtained an average 6.9 points/event, WNUT had 11 members averaging 6.6 points/event and 8TOC had 18 members averaging 5.3 points/event.

So, did everyone have a good time? You better believe it. If you weren't chasing world records, medals or PB's (personal bests as in swimming your best time ever), then you would have been renewing acquaintances, making new friends and taking in the sights and customs.