Sheila T. @ FINA Worlds

Triathlon Forum
1

Sheila Taormina was scheduled to compete in five events at the just-completed FINA World Masters Long-Course Championships, held on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The results:

800-METER FREE. Last Friday, the opening day of the meet, she won the 800 free in 9:13.49, which set a new world record for the 35-39 division and turned out to be the fastest mark ever recorded by a woman of any age in FINA masters competition (the “masters” part is the catch here). The previous 35-39 world record of 9:16.20 was set in 1997 by Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen of the San Diego masters.

100-METER FREE. A day later, she was the 35-39 runnerup in the 100 free to Sheri Hart of the USA; her time of 59.53 (Hart did 59.16) bettered the existing meet record and was one of only four on the day to break the 1:00 barrier.

200-METER FREE. On Sunday, her time of 2:07.64 in the 200–meter free fell short of setting a new world 35-39 record (2:06.94, again held by Pipes-Neilsen), but still broke the existing meet record by three and one-half seconds and was the fastest of the day for any age.

RELAYS. On Tuesday, she swam with the NTC team from Clermont, Florida in 200-meter free and 200-meter medley mixed relays (she did the fly on the latter). They ended up mid-pack in both events.

200-METER FLY. Yesterday, she won her third event in 35-39 and set another meet record in the 200 fly with a time of 2:26.36. The world record for that division, set by Pipes-Neilsen in 1997 at 2:20.21, was never threatened.

400-METER FREE. Today’s 400 free was to be Sheila’s final event. But she spaced about the requirement to check-in – and when she realized her mistake, the meet director told her “sorry”. So, her best event – on paper at least – got scratched.

**Summary: Five individual events. Three wins, one second, one didn’t-check–in-in-time. Three new meet records, two fastest-on-the-day-of-any-age, one new world record.

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That’s awesome. I posted about Sheila before the meet in anticipation of these races.

I’m pretty proud of my Masters Coach too. Dennis Baker. He has swum three events so far…3 World Records!

M45-49 400IM, 200IM, 200 Fly and today swims the 400 Free. He’s on a roll and will likely come away with four World records! More incredible is the fact that his times are either the fastest overall (200 Fly) or 2nd / 3rd in these events, in the whole meet!.

Amazing.

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Pass on my congratulations.

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I find the results page slightly confusing, but it looks like Karlyn did pretty well in 200 Back, 200 IM, 400 IM, 100 Back and 200 Free. I used to swim w/ Karlyn, her husband Eric and her mom Adrienne in Kona. Incredibly nice people.

5

That’s pretty good to have beaten one of Karlyn’s records. I remember swimming in some masters meets with her, and she was still qualifying for Olympic trials in that age group, and I believe in the next one also, in the over 40…Knowing how fast SHelia really is, gives you an appreciation for Karlyns’s times. I think she swam every stroke, at just about every distance too…Congrats to Shelia on a great meet, too bad about the 400 though… Now on to the olympic pentathlon to do what no other person has ever done in Olympic history. I think that is awesome for her, and so what if she has to live on macaroni and cheese for awhile. THis is something that she takes with her for the rest of her life, and there is plenty enough time to be in the work force and living in the rat race…Tell her to enjoy, and not stress abut the financials…

6

The coach of our master’s team was there and he said he’d never seen someone with a 6 beat kick in an 800 until he saw Sheila T race last week. We were chatting about her over dinner last night and he claims her kick provided so much forward propulsion that she was leaving a wake behind her. Man I wish I could swim.

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Too cool, Too cool. Sheila was the first triathlete I ever heard mentioned in the mainstream media (ESPN piece about her unfortunate stalker incident). How is her prep going for Bejing 2006? I hope she kicks ass.

-C