The Tuggeranong Challenge 2017 | “The Richard Flockart Edition” | 16 September 2017
Report by Caroline Makin, Club Captain & Annette Britten, Meet Director
The Tuggeranong Challenge 2017 - The Richard Flockart Edition took place at Lakeside Leisure Centre on Saturday, 16 September 2017. This special edition of our regular Challenge meet included a 25m Butterfly event “THE FLOCKART FLYER” which took place at the start of the meet and was swum in memory of Richard Flockart.
Richard Flockart
Richard passed away on 20 December 2016 from complications arising from his treatment for myelofibrosis. Richard’s death was totally unexpected. Although myelofibrosis is a serious condition, Richard’s medical reports had been positive. We had expected Richard to complete his treatment in Melbourne and return to swimming in Canberra in early 2017.
Richard had been a club member for many years and was an active competitor, his favourite and best stroke being Butterfly. Richard competed both with us at Tuggeranong and his first club the Powerpoints. During the initial years of his illness, Richard continued to train with us, during most of 2016 Richard did not have the physical stamina to train, however, he did manage to keep fit and he continued with his study of German. He was one of a kind and always made us smile!
We saw 90% of the swimmers entered in the meet taking part in The Flockart Flyer. We asked swimmers to wear something purple or pink in honour of Richard and his love of those colours!
2017 Challenge Flockart Flyer Start
Funkita Fly King
There was a mystery prize for the swimmer who finished closest to their nominated entry time in the 25m Butterfly event “THE FLOCKART FLYER” ... and the winner was Caz Makin from Vikings ... who won this fabulous "Fly King" swim cap in memory of Richard whilst wearing a purple suit and pink cap and goggles!
Next up we moved on to The "Challenge" which consists of swimming a 50m, 100m, and 200m Event, each in a different stroke. To ascertain the winner we aggregate the absolute difference between actual and nominated time for each of the three events. For example: if you swim 2 seconds faster in event 1, 3 seconds slower in event 2, and 0.5 of a second faster in event 4, your total difference over the 3 events is 5.5 seconds. The trophy will be presented to the swimmer with the smallest total difference. The fastest swimmer will not necessarily be the winner.
The winner of the 50m challenge event was Anne Smyth who swam Freestyle hitting her entry time exactly whilst Katrina Burgess won the 100m challenge event swimming Backstroke also hitting her entry time exactly - both ladies to the .00 difference on the nose! Donna Campbell was the closest to the nominated time in the 200m challenge event swimming Breastroke within 0.02 of her entry time ...
The Overall Challenge winner was Nick Grinter who showed consistent swimming across the 3 events with a total time difference in entry times of 1.28 seconds. Katrina Burgess placed 2nd overall with a time difference of 3.36 seconds and Caz Makin 3rd overall with a 3.39 seconds time difference.
The Tuggeranong Challenge meet also includes an exciting finale to the day - the Champagne Shoot Out Relay. The 6 teams closest to their nominated entry time in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay go through to the Champagne Shoot Out Relay which is a handicapped event, with the winning team being the first to touch the wall! This year we saw of a mixture of Womens, Mens, and Mixed teams in the finale from Tuggeranong Vikings, Molonglo Water Dragons, Campbelltown, and Ginninderra.
Ladies Relay Winners
The Vikings Women's Team of Atsuko McGowan, Kylie Lane, Suzie Gunning, and Katrina Burgess held on to clinch victory finishing less than a second ahead of the Vikings Men’s "youngster" team in 2nd place.
Full meet results are available on the MSA portal.
A big thank you goes out to everyone who offered their support on the day and those who helped make this excellent event possible:
Annette Britten - as Meet Director for processing all entries in the Meet Manager system and running such a successful event on the day.
Caz Makin for once again organising the flyer and program for the event and sorting out our Vikings relay teams, especially as she had been enjoying a holiday overseas and only returned home the week before the Challenge!
Our visiting officials: Jodie Burke, Paul Bailey, Audrey Stutsel, Owen Sinden, Greg Lewin, and Victor Libdy (who stepped in to give us a hand with starting - thanks Victor!). Your ongoing support is very much appreciated and without you, we would not be able to run this fun event.
Our club officials: Anne Smyth, Greg Gourley, and Gary Stutsel for stepping in and lending a hand again and again.
Greg Gourley for ensuring we had all our electrical goods charged, at the pool, and ready for the day!
Our recording team of Scott Makin and Jane Lindsay did a super job given that we were running 3 programs to obtain all the final results for the day.
Rachel Morris — our runner for the day who did a fantastic job.
Anne Smyth for organising all the prizes for the day and organising the setup and pack up crews.
Donna Campbell for organising the catering, raffle prizes, and selling tickets on the day and for organising the dinner afterward. Officials were impressed by the spread of food supplied from the Café at the pool and the raffle was great with about 15 prizes in total up for grabs.
Our volunteers whom turned up to help with timekeeping for the afternoon even though they were not swimming.
Our volunteers whom turned up to help set up for the event and pack away after the event. As they say “many hands make light work”!
Those that provided home-baked goodies and nibbles for the tea and coffee table.
We are sure that all competitors had a fabulous afternoon of swimming and enjoyed the fun and friendship of the day in the true spirit of the Masters Swimming Australia motto.