It was great to see 10 swimmers and one volunteer represent us at round 9 of the 2023 NSW Pointscore. The last time we competed in this was in round 1 at Campbelltown. There were 16 events and 104 swimmers representing 20 clubs from Canberra, the South Coast, Sydney and beyond. Our swimmers came from our three venues, AIS (Tanya Colyer, Chris Hayhoe, Geoff Llewellyn, Mike Peedom [also Qbn], and Gary Stutsel); Civic (Nik Manassiev, Mary Liz Partridge[also AIS], Tamarind Smart and newcomer James Hurnall); and Queanbeyan (Ed Auzins).
Molonglo Water Dragons volunteer, Carol Croce, quickly mastered the Semi-automatic timekeeping device (SAT) to become one of the few club members who is proficient in all three methods of timekeeping (manual, SAT and fully automatic [AOE]).
6 of our 10 swimmers swam the maximum allowed four individual events to prove once again that the two keys to scoring maximum points are entering maximum events (all six scored more points than our other four swimmers) and having as many swimmers as possible to increase the number of relay teams which each score double points per place per event. The team scored 350 points to finish 3rd in the club pointscore behind hosts Tuggeranong Vikings 954 points (29 swimmers) and newer club Sapphire Coast 404 points (13 swimmers). We also had the third biggest team.
With four swimmers in a relay team we were only able to field two teams. In the absence of our “circling the world” club captain, I elected to enter two mixed teams, that is two women and two men in each. The 200-239 team of Ed Auzins, Tamarind Smart, Mary-Liz Partridge and Nik Manassiev swam 2:38.15 to win their age group while James Hurnall, Chris Hayhoe, Tanya Colyer and Mike Peedom swam 2nd to Ryde in the 240-279 group. Two swimmers, Ed Auzins, back from the NT and Geoff Llewellyn, the Endurance champion, both won their age group with 39 from a possible 40 points, while 7 other swimmers won at least one of their events.
