Ninth Masters World Mark Down Under to Jenny Whiteley

SYDNEY, October 28. AUSSIE Masters ace Jenny Whiteley continued her assault on the national and world records in the 45-49 age group on the weekend taking down one world and two national short course records at a small meet at the Hills Club in the far north of Sydney.

Whiteley slashed 4.46 seconds of American Laura Val’s world mark for the 400 meters individual medley clocking a very hot 5:28.91 (and over ten seconds off the previous Aussie record held by Kathryn Dobson) to break her ninth world mark for 2003. Her record-breaking performance is providing the perfect challenge for 45-year-old American Masters champ Suzanne Heim-Bowen who is also lowering global standards across the Pacific.

Her second record came in the 100m breaststroke, Whiteley trimmed her own national mark set at the State champs earlier this month by 0.64 seconds to touch in 1:18.13. Training partner David King, 50, also set a new 50m breast Aussie record when he cut more than one-second off his PR to clock 34.56.

The 45-year-old from the famous Ryde Club in Sydney also broke the Aussie record for the 50m fly clocking 31.12 to take a massive 1.82 seconds off Olympic legend Shane Gould’s 2001 mark. Whiteley, who is two years younger than Gould, swam in the shadow of the Munich triple gold medalist at the Ryde Club under Forbes Carlile in the early ‘70’s. Whiteley admitted to being “too nervous” in competition in those days and did not go on to elite level.

However, times have changed and both women will be competing at the Australian Masters Games to be held at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra next weekend. The two women will clash in the same heats of the 50m freestyle and 50m breaststroke at the long course meet which should be one of the highlights of a interesting program.

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