UQ Masters SC Preparation Meet 2022 Summary
After two pandemic years without holding a UQ Masters meet, it was decided that 2022 was the year for a comeback! Planning begun last year, and all was prepared for hosting a Preparation Meet in the lead in to Short Course Nationals and States.
March arrived, and so did the torrential rain… The UQ Aquatic Centre was quickly inundated with murky floodwaters, and closed down until further notice. Team UQ was devastated, with nowhere to train and no home pool to host our swim meet.
Peter Rosengren of The Swim Academy very kindly assisted us in relocating our meet to the beautiful Stuartholme School pool, a fabulous 14 lane 25m outdoor heated pool located at Stuartholme School on Mt Coot-tha. This is the home pool of TSA Masters, our newest MSQ club. Peter launched the club several weeks ago and encouraged swimmers to join and enter the meet. Thank you all for sharing your venue and we hope you enjoyed your first MSQ swim meet. We look forward to seeing you at many more.
The meet was run in a ‘preparation’ format, allowing swimmers to pick events they wished to try, or to get a time. There were no age group awards allowing swimmers the space to pick and choose the number and combination of events they wanted in preparation for upcoming meets. We also introduced two other concepts that fall in line with a Preparation meet – pay per event fees and larger event limits. Swimmers were able to nominate in as few or as many events as desired, and only pay for those events. We also wanted to provide a full program including the opportunity to race all 400m events.
It was interesting to note what combinations of events swimmers wanted to compete in. Entrants nominated from only one, to up to 17 events to swim in. 225 swimmers nominated from 31 clubs. After a number of withdrawals, and with covid number again on the rise, the program was finalised with 217 competitors.
Everyone came, eager to compete in a big meet with a fast pool. There were plenty of smiling faces and racing fun, and it was wonderful to catch up with swimming friends once again. Thank you to all who travelled considerable distances to join us.
Special thanks to:
- Peter Rosengren and The Swim Academy – provision and set up of venue and BBQ
- Nick Dale of UQ Swim Club – Starter
- Emma Dawson of UQ Swim Club – Recording
- Chris Hawley of UQ Swim Club – sound and technology
- Heather Butler – Meet Referee
- Our team of MSQ Officials: Terry, Colin, David, Michele, and Liz
- Brett Fischer – Chief Time Keeper
- Laura Scolaro – Marshal
A huge thank you to our fabulous Team UQ Masters – for planning, preparing, cooking, shopping, providing, feeding, timing, organising, marshaling, recording, announcing and donating for our meet. It was an enormous team effort, and we sincerely thank you all for your valuable contributions to making the day a success.
It was great to have John Munro of JMS Goggles join us on pool deck with some great deals on his excellent new goggle range. JMS is the major sponsor at the upcoming MSQ State Championships in May. Swimmers sure were snapping them up! You can check them out here.
The fun Fin Freestyle event was back, this time over 100m. 29 swimmers battled it out, with Joerg Rockstroh QBR taking out the win being 0.01 seconds from his nominated time, and Andrew Cowan QBR swimming the fastest time of 49.43 seconds, closely followed by Steve Berting of UQ in a time of 50.14. Sophie Robertson QRL was closest female to nominated time, and also the fastest female with a time of 1:01.00. Full results are below.
Numbers have been crunched, and UQ Masters won the major trophy, closely followed Cotton Tree Masters and Noosa Masters. There were plenty of random draw goodies given away at the end.
Some other results of note:
- Most swims on the day: Gillian O’Mara QRC and Lachlan McCarthy QES (9 events each)
- Most meet points: Gillian O’Mara QRC with 80 points
- Highest Fina points over 3 swims: Kady Ibell QUQ and Todd Robinson QPB
Records tumbled throughout the day, with 10 national records being broken by five swimmers, 43 Queensland records broken by 21 swimmers, and 7 Tasmanian records broken by Maciej Slugocki. Congratulations everyone!
Thank you to all for attending the UQ Masters Prep Meet, and we hope you all enjoyed your day with us.
Please see below for all UQ Meet statistics.
If you would like to share feedback, please email: masters@uqswim.org.au
Many thanks from UQ Masters.
UQ Masters Prep Meet Event Information
