Kevin is master athlete

Bensville resident, Mr Kevin Vickery, 77, has won the NSW Masters Athlete of the Year at the NSW Sports Federation.

Kevin was presented with his award at the annual awards night, held at the Homebush Super Dome.

The award is judged across all sports and nominations are narrowed down to three finalists.

This year 140 nominations were received from 30 sports and included nearly 70 world champions.

Kevin was nominated for his more than 20 years of competition in Masters swimming events.

He has set new state and national records in 128 events in all the strokes and presently holds 20 state and national records in his latest age group of 75 to 70 years of age.

In 1998, at the FINA World Masters Championships, he won six gold medals in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres freestyle, 200 metres butterfly and five kilometre open water swim.

In last week's State long course championships in Sydney, Kevin won five gold in the 100 metre, 200 metre and 400 metre freestyle, and 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke.

This weekend, he will swim at the Australian Masters Swimming Championships in Queensland, where he will compete in the 100 metre, 200 metre and 400 metre freestyle, and the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke.

Kevin also hopes to compete at the FINA World Masters swimming championship to be held in Munich in August, and is currently seeking a sponsor.

The World Masters is open to anyone over the age of 25 and competitors are grouped into age groups spanning five years.

World Masters takes place every two years and regularly attracts up to 4000 swimming competitors.

Even though the competition is open to anyone to take part, competition is extremely tough.

Kevin said a 100 metre freestyle final winner in his age group of 75 to 79, would have to swim the distance in about one minute and 10 seconds.

To give an idea of how fast this is, in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Dawn Fraser swam the 100 metres freestyle in one minute and two seconds.