Posted on Friday 4th April, 2025

Noosa Masters Meet – A Day Like No Other!

Not cyclones, changes of swim dates nor heavy rains and strong winds could stop Noosa Masters from hosting our annual swim meet for 2025.

With the introduction of 400m events to our program, our earlier start time of 9.00 am saw the pool and its surrounds awash with swimmers and rain on our revised Swim Date of Saturday 29th March. Our fabulous raffle table greeted everyone entering the Noosa Aquatic Centre and was a great tribute to the efforts of the raffle team and the generosity of our sponsors.

Unfortunately, the heavy showers did prevent some entrants from reaching us, but we were still delighted to see so many swimmers arrive at the start of the day. They came bearing grins and stoic attitudes which was a great boon to all our wonderful and wet Noosa workers.

Our Meet Officials, Heather and Dave Butler as well as our own club member, Liz Alfredson huddled under umbrellas to ensure that the meet progressed in record time and all the entrants are eternally grateful that these Officials decided to forgo a lunchbreak to keep the meet moving along. Special thanks to our club member, Trevor Matthews who stepped in at the last minute to act as the official starter for the day.

Our Marshalls, Check Starters, Chief Timekeepers and Timekeepers did an amazing job of keeping track of all the changes to heats due to lots of non-starters. But our utmost thanks go to David Findlay and his trainee, Greg Bott who worked tirelessly to ensure that the results were finalised under very very difficult circumstances.

Our announcer, Marion Slattery from Cotton Tree Masters brought her sunny disposition and lovely voice to our meet and she managed to coax timekeepers onto the pool deck and swimmers to marshalling whilst also keeping the sound system protected from the elements.

Our catering crew who looked after morning tea, lunch and the presentation BBQ did a wonderful job keeping officials, entrants and volunteers nourished throughout the day. No easy task presenting and cooking in such wet conditions, but everything was delicious.

When the sun eventually started to break through around midday it lifted the spirits of all in attendance. Presentations of individual place getters was preceded by a presentation to our Club from MSQ President, Susanne Milenkevich of the 2024 MSQ Endurance Trophy. This is the eleventh consecutive Endurance 1000 award achieved by our club.

On a sadder note, the Masters Swimming community recently lost a long term member, China Johnson – aged 96 – and we thank Gay Bradley, President of Cotton Tree Masters (China’s club) for sharing their club’s memories of this remarkable, gentle and humorous swimmer.

The age group awards were handed out in broad sunshine, and it was of special note that the Small Club Trophy (average points for Teams with 3 – 6 swimmers) was awarded to Flinders Phoenix Masters whilst the Large Club Trophy (average points for teams with over 7 swimmers) was won this year by Belgravia Masters.

With sincere thanks to everyone who made the journey to attend and with everything done and dusted for another year, we can only hope for more favourable weather for 2026.

Noosa Masters Meet Director,

Julie Bott.

Meet Results:Â