The Cobar Yabbies Senior Men’s Swimming Club returned home with the 2021 Western Districts AIF swimming trophy on Sunday after the club finished as the carnival’s point score winners.
Hosted this year by the Forbes Diggers Club, the 2021 Western Districts AIF Carnival had 120 swimmers competing from six clubs including Dubbo, Nyngan, Wellington, Condobolin, Forbes and Cobar.
Prior to the start of the carnival, a minute’s silence was observed for the late Lilliane Brady OAM to honour the contribution she’d made to the western district.
The Yabbies performed well as a team to claim three relay wins and eight Yabbies also claimed podium places in their individual events.
Cobar won the Scratch 4 Man Relay with Lucas Hardy, Cameron van Bruegel, Matt Harland and Murray Harland finishing with the fastest combined time of 2 mins 4.7 seconds.
The Yabbies team of Chris Powell, Bill Fugar, Stephen Clark and Bob Clark won the RSL 4 Man Handicap 200 years relay (the total ages of swimmers must add up to 200 years or more). They finished within 1.60 seconds of their nominated time.
Cobar also finished out in front in the 10 Man Handicap Relay after finishing just over three seconds outside their nominated time.
Cobar 1st just over 3 seconds
In the 6 Man Relay event (which required teams to have at least one RSL swimmer), the Cobar side finished in second place.
The Yabbies finished in first and second places in the 50 Metres Individual Scratch race with Lucas Harding the quickest with 27.52 seconds and Cameron van Breugel was the runner-up on 31.35.
In the handicapped events, Cobar Yabbies president John Carswell was second in the Ian & Marg Settree Memorial Presidents Handicap race; David Mexted (with 0.76 seconds off his nominated time) was third in the RSL 30 Metres Handicap; Jason Toomey (0.02) grabbed second place in the 30 metres handicap (first place time was 0.01sec); Bill Fugar (0.04) was second 50 Metres Open Handicap; Matt Harland (0.27) finished second in the 100 Metres Open Handicap and Fugar was third with 0.36.
