Sunday 9 November
Close to 200 swimmers converged on the banks of the Currumbin estuary this morning in picture-postcard conditions for the Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games open water swimming competition.
The competition, which moved from Lake Hugh Muntz to the southern Gold Coast for this year’s event, featured three distances (1.25km, 2.5km and 5km) with swimmers ranging in age from 22 to 79.
Gold Coast local Rene Gallina was the first athlete to arrive on shore in the 2.5 kilometre meet having battled through some tough conditions to finish his Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games swimming campaign in style.
“It wasn’t too bad out there. There was a strong sweep at the end, so coming back around the last can to the finish line was pretty tough,” Rene said.
“I competed in the pool events the last three days where I broke an Australian record and three or four Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games records in my age category.”
The 35-year-old former professional ironman recently made the switch to masters swimming and has achieved exceptional results to date.
“I competed in the Nutri-Grain Ironman quite a few years ago as well as other swimming and surf life saving competitions,” Rene said.
“I’m just competing for fun now. I haven’t competed professionally for about 10 to 15 years now, so it’s been quite a while.
“The masters competition gives me something to train for and gives me something to do.”
Rene’s goal at the moment is to climb the FINA World Masters Championships leaderboard and hopefully sneak into the top 10 in some of his events.
“The rankings for the FINA World Masters Championships go through around December or early January,” Rene said.
“I’m not sure how I will go, but hopefully I will get in the top few in my events.”
For more information visit www.mastersgames.com.au.
The new scheme was born here and filagra this is not anything that we would like to see. Caverta although better in some elements but not important for us.
