SWIMMING.

Grey River Argus, 26 February 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

SWIMMING.

(“By Trudgeon.’’) The first swimming carnival of the season was held on Wednesday last at Cubden, the proceeds going to augment tiie 1 unds of the m a swimming baths, laud the above funds will receive a decided fillip as a result of the day’s proceedings. The arrangements were of a first-class nature, tiie only thing that Vriij at all unsatisi uctory being the finishing line, which at times, especially in the first part of the programme! seemed to puzzle some of the competitors, but this was n.»t the fault of the committee as there are lew facilities for finishing at the Cobden baths. A certain lack of public spiritedness as shown j.y one man who in spite of tiie fact that a slad in aid of the funds was being run by the committee, set up an ice cream booth at the entrance t> the grounds; luckily, however, he was alone in his unsportsmanlike tactics. 1 he carnival opened with a boys’ race ot -»0 yard*, the place getters being laafe, \invent and .Shuttieworth. Vincent, who filled second place, is a boy nat st mid go far in swimming, as he ably held his own against much older and bigger competitors. The men’s 5U yards handicap provided good sport in the heats and final. Malloy who qualified for tnc final in his beat was disqualified for going before his time. 'The winner turned up in Wells, who unloosed sufficient speed to defeat Keesing and Griffen in the race home, touches separating the three men. tSome fine swimming was seen in the ladies’ race by the Aliases Kelly and McGurk. The latter, who was in receipt of a start off th'* other two, got home. Later in the afternoon the two ( Miss Kellys filled first and second places in the diving. Tiie Secondary Schools race provided S' me of the most .spectacular finishes of the day. Shuttleworth, tho winner, l.as proved himself to be one of the be>i boy swimmers we have had for seme time. This lad has a nice style, ami we a class above his opponents. Malloy made amends for the 50 yards handicap in which he was disqualified oy landing the 100 ynr<m in a hotlvrontested finish. Malloy ami K .sing the scratch men, took the water well in their dives, and Malloy raced to the front at the (‘nd of 50 yards; in the second 50 however, this effort told on him. but he lasted long enough to defeat Keesing and Lind. Malloy must he counted as one of, if not the best, swimmer we have had in Grey, and is equally at home in any distance. Marist A’s had a fairly easy victory in the Hutchings Memorial Relay Rare for Primary Schools, their first man establishing a lead, which was kept, t h rough out. The defeat of Keesing by W. I’ryn y a schoolboy, camo to a shock. Paiwic deserved it, his dive for the final being a “slinker. ” The exhibition of diving by Mr Keebing of Hokitika, was well worth the admission alone. Despite the fact that the water was onlj’ a few feet off the water Air Keesing demonstrated every class of dive, including the double screw, the half screw and the double somersault, difficult feats ith such a small space io work on. The '‘Charley Chaplin” dive took tho fancy of the younger element and had to be repealed to satisfy insistent demands. Mr Kecsing is a true type of sport, and the committee are indebted to him for bis fine display. Air Fielding, late of Auckland, terminated the afternoon with a display of life-saving, showing several valuable hints in this line. The novelty of aquaplaning appealed to tho crowd, and many expressions of admiration were heard at tho skill of the aquaplaners, the Misses Kelly, who together with the motor-boat owner, Mr Alt* White, helped to add to the enjoyment in a largo degree. By no stretch of imagination could the heavyweights be likened to a mannequin parade, and that slim boyish figure which is so fashionable at present was lamentably absent. In fact as far as figures go, the figure O was far better represented than th' figure 1. When they lined up for the Start, it was seen that over-training had not worried the competitors to any extent. The splash created by tho various “dives” was immense, and Mr Keesing will doubtless have added a few more “fancies” to his collection, if he watched some of the entrants carefully. The winner turned up in Charley AfcKechnic, who defeated Arty Reban by a long arm. pulling pumps evidently giving “Skinny” an advantage. “Arty” Behan has not let the recent motion pictures of “Boy” Chari-’ lon and other cracks go by without| taking heed, ami he gave a fine demon-! st ration of the trudge, crawl and breast - stroke kicks all in 50 yards, no mean achievement. His right and left hooks to tho water also pleased the crowd. “Hughie” ‘l’rouland chased Beban and McKechnie as if he had suddenly discovered that they were to rival Methusaleh in age, and wanted to take out a life policy. Harry Carter, who sneaked this race some time ago, has evidently been living on the fat of the land, and this told its tale. Jack Bumble after going a really brilliant fifteen yards retired. He would have given the winner a close shave had he continued. Allen Baker was well accounted for; „nu- of the fish yarns he tells were noiliing ■ onipared to ,hr one he ga' l when he left the water anent his defeat. Dave Stevenson should have shown better form. “Too many parties and too many pals?” W. Patterson has read every book on swimming in his shop, but when he (Continued at foot of next eolutnn.j

tried to iiut theory into practice he got confused. Costello also had bellows to mend. Leak in the wind somewhere that will need soldering, Cos.

Why didn’t Ted Kiely start? Surely you could havo shown that the Dominion is the equal of any Empire, Ted.