By Jason M. Parker and Phil Whitten<\/p>\n
SAVANNAH, Georgia, August 15. DESPITE the best efforts of global meteorological forces, the 2004 USMS Long Course National Championships breezed to a close today amid universal praise that found the meet to be among the best Masters nationals ever. <\/p>\n
Sandwiched between Hurricanes Bonnie and Charley, it was certainly among the most memorable.<\/p>\n
Five more world records fell this day, all of them set by previous record-setters.<\/p>\n
Trip Hedrick notched his third global standard of the meet in the men's 50-54 division, this time slashing the 100 freestyle standard by more than a second to 55.41. The old mark was 56.44, set by Lee Mench last year.<\/p>\n
Tom Wolf scored his third record in the same age group, dipping below the 30-second barrier for 50 meters backstroke with his 29.81. Casey Clafin's 30.36, the previous record, had stood only one year. Wolf made a clean sweep of the dorsal records in Savannah.<\/p>\n
In the women's 80-84 age group, Lois Kivi Nochman recorded her third global standard when she hacked some 44 seconds off Jean Durston's 10 year-old 200 meter fly mark of 5:24.52. Nochman flew to a 4:40.07 time.<\/p>\n
The final two world records were swum in the mixed freestyle relay, and New England Masters accounted for both.<\/p>\n
In the 200+ age group, the team of Homer Lane, Jacki Hirsty, Joel Feldmann and Stu Cromarty touched in 1:49.85, destroying the previous record of 1:52.06 set by … New England Masters in 2002. Feldmann was a member of that relay squad as well.<\/p>\n
In the 320+ division, the NEM team of Jim Edwards, Billie Burrill, Petey Smith and Ted Haartz clocked 2:57.49, erasing the 2:58.96 swum earlier this year by Sunway Yuko of Japan.<\/p>\n
In addition to the world records, there were three new American marks set in Savannah. Joann Leilich took the women's 65-69 USMS standard to 44.24, almost a second under Jayne Bruner's 45.22 from 2001.<\/p>\n
In the women's 75-79 division, Sylvia Eisele swam the same race in 51.76 seconds, wiping out Penny Taylor's 52.93 set just last month.<\/p>\n
Bart Greenberg also notchged a 50 breast record, his coming in the men's 80-84 division. Greenberg's 46.09 eased Max Von Isser's 1999 standard of 46.37 from the record book.<\/p>\n
In the 200m fly for women 55-59, Barbara Dunbar slashed the listed record with her 2:59.16. But Dunbar has a pending time of 2:53.74 swum two weeks ago at the Zone Championships.<\/p>\n
An exhausted Meet Director Scott Rabalais breathed a well-earned sigh of relief after the final race was swum. "Everyone had a great time," he said. "I think things went remarkably smoothly, especially considering Bonnie and Charley. Overall, I'd say this meet far exceeded my expectations."<\/p>\n
Rabalais said he thought Trip Hedrick was the meet's outstanding swimmer. Hedrick set three world records in the men's 50-54 age group, including history's first sub-one-minute 100 meter butterfly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jason M. Parker and Phil Whitten SAVANNAH, Georgia, August 15. DESPITE the best efforts of global meteorological forces, the 2004 USMS Long Course National Championships breezed to a close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n