Jenny Whiteley Sets Two Masters World Records Down Under
By Stephen J. Thomas
SYDNEY, April 10. IT might have been just a small AUSSI Masters (short course) meet in Gosford, an hour north of Sydney last Saturday, but 45-year-old Jenny Whiteley from the Ryde club made her presence felt with a mighty big splash in her four events.
In her first race of the meet Whiteley clocked a stunning 2:11.09 for the 200-meters freestyle, not only destroying the Aussie 45-49 record held by Munich Olympics' legend Shane Gould (2:23.87) but took a massive 4.22 seconds off American Laura Val's world mark set in 2000.
Next it was the 100 free, Whiteley went 1:01.42 to again take down Laura Val's '96 world mark by 0.34 seconds.
In the one lap dash the Sydneysider took a huge 1.72 seconds off Shane Gould's Aussie record 29.96 clocking 28.24, not far short of American Jackie Hirsty's world mark of 28.06.
To finish the day, Whiteley set a new Australian record in the 50 breaststroke clocking 36.81 almost two seconds under the old record held by Brenda Casey but still well short of Brit Maggie Kelly's world standard 34.64.
Whiteley also set a long course world record in the 200 breaststroke of 2:57.24 at the NSW State titles last month here in Sydney.
The National AUSSI Masters top ten rankings for 2002 have been released and can be found at:
http://www.aussimasters.com.au/results/national_top_10__2002/national_top_10__2002.html