OLDS — Olds resident Graeme Gordon says he and three teammates broke a masters swimming record during a meet in Edmonton on June 21.
Gordon says the record fell during a 4 x 100 medley masters relay for men whose combined ages range between 200 and 239.
"The relay in question is in fact a pending Canadian record. I expect to be able to approve the record and make it official later this week," an official with Swimming Canada Masters wrote in an email July 7.
The long course meet was held in a 50-metre pool.
In swimming, a medley utilizes all four swimming strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.
“I was part of our relay and we broke the national record,” Gordon said during an interview with the Albertan. “Average 50 years old, right? But, yeah, we were able to get under the time.”
Gordon swam second on the team, doing the backstroke.
“I get typecast it right. Anytime I'm on a relay, it's usually backstroke,” he said.
Gordon said he persuaded his teammates to go for the record. At least one was a bit reluctant to do so.
“We were aiming for it. I had to sell it to everybody,” he said. “One of my teammates was a little bit harder to convince, but he's like, ‘you know what? Okay, I'll yeah, yeah. If you know that we can then, then I'll be on your relay.’ So he was a little bit reluctant, but he was able to help us out and just everything came together, right? Perfect time.”
