4 February 2009

Four  world records provided the fireworks on a busy day of indoor rowing at the 20th ACC New Zealand Masters Games in Wanganui.

Ohakea Air Force PT instructor Warren Mant, 39, lowered his own men’s age grade 1000m record, set at the last Games in the city in 2007, by .6sec to 2min  50.3sec.

He was also quickest in the 300m and 500m events but outside his own world marks.

The oldest woman of the 6700 competitors from 20 countries at the Games, Rose Jacob (Hamilton), aged 94, reduced the eight-year-old lightweight women’s 1000m record from 6:38.4 to 6:31.0.

Cliff Taylor (Pukekohe), aged 85, set two new world 2000m records with his time of 8m 54.2 which broke both the men’s heavyweight (8:55.9) and lightweight (9:22.0) marks – the lightweight by an amazing 28sec.

Taylor finished with four individual gold medals as did Jacob, Annette Fletcher (Auckland – 66), Elspeth Sicely (Wanganui – 54) and Shirley Godkin (Timaru – 62).

Triple title winners were Mant, John Sicely (Wanganui - 55), Gary Wilson (Pukekohe – 72) and Bruce Willis (Gisborne – 72)

Visitors claimed fastest individual times in the duathlon with Kieren O’Neill (Woodville – 42) smartest of the men with 1m 33m 37s and Kristina Peina (Papamoa – 31) quickest woman in 1:50.33.

Kevin Fee (PN – 46) was second quickest man (1:33.51) and Brian Warren (Hawera – 60 third with 1:34.08 to win his grade.

Kathy O’Donnell (Wanganui – 48) was second smartest in the women with 1:52.10 ahead of Prue Paulger (Wanganui -56) 2:53.18.

Defending champions to retain titles were Paulger and  Peter Godfrey (North Shore – 72).

Dunedin-based Robert Sihamau, 41, from Niue, who has entered 10 different sports, was in a winning eight-strong team in the Sports Accuracy Challenge.

Tom Katene (Hawera - 45) and David Walker (Auckland - 40) managed two titles each in the men’s social table tennis.

Badminton players to retain open singles titles from 2007 were Grant DeMenech (Paraparaumu – 46) and Andrea Fischer (Hamilton - 49).

The other men’s grade winners were Canadian James Bass (36), Dave Cochrane (Lower Hutt - 56), Jimmy Lin (Napier - 74) and Ian Kerr (Wanganui - 46).

In the women  Suzanne Paalvast (Otorohanga – 42), Beverley Braybrook (Lower Hutt – 46), Cheryl Lawrence (New Plymouth – 61) and Roslyn Eades (Whangarei – 65) took titles.

Keith Stone (Rapanui – 57) skipped his team to a second lawn bowls fours title with Marton’s Colin Rowatt (63) and Maxine Rowatt (64) again in the winning team along with newcomer Gail Young (Rapanui – 63).

They were unbeaten with four straight wins. Also unbeaten with three and a half wins each were runner-up Mike Nasey (Pakuranga - 62) and third-placed Joyce Bryant (Wanganui East – 79).

A fine 67 from Ross Kingsley (Manawatu – 72) and Maggie McMinn (Rangitikei – 68) was the best net score in the golf foursomes at Santoft.

Best gross score of 84 came from Sunny Teki (Wanganui – 60), an individual gross gold medal winner two years ago, and Queenslander Joy Black (69).

The Papamoa Bay of Plenty pair of Richard (45) and Sharon (48) Lawrence carded the most stableford points with 40.