Melbourne Olympics Medal Winner in the Pool at Masters Games

8 February 2012

Melbourne Olympics Medal Winner Returns to the Pool at the Masters Games

Margaret Wilding competed for Great Britain at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics winning a Bronze Medal in the 100 meters Backstroke. Last night she was back in the pool for the same event at the NZ Masters Games in Dunedin. Margaret is now 70 and this time she won Gold.

Margaret’s time at the Olympics was 1min 13secs, just a fifth of a second behind the equal first place getters. Margaret points out that there was no electronic timing then, instead each swimmer had three time keepers and the official time was taken as the average of those times.

Last night Margaret was intrigued to see swimmers warming up in the pool doing a few laps before their race.

“We never did that before a race we thought you’d tire yourself out, but times were very different then, we didn’t have physios and when we travelled to Melbourne we travelled without coaches and without family members. What we did have were chaperones! Plus the Games Village was segregated with the male and female quarters separated by high fences and guarded by a soldier who kept sentry. What was amazing was the food. Great Britain had not long come out of food rationing after the war and we had never seen so much food.”

Margaret was delighted with her Masters Games performance. She had given herself a goal of swimming the 100metres Backstroke in 1min 40secs but bettered that with a time of 1 min 36secs. Tonight Margaret will swim in the 50m Freestyle and tomorrow night in the 100m Individual Medley. In 1956 there were only 5 individual events that women could compete in. Only men were allowed to compete in 1500m events and there were no relays.

Margaret spends 4 to 5 months living in New Zealand each year since buying a home in Wanaka in 2002. When she flys out each year the journey is considerably faster than when she flew to the Olympics in 1956. “We left Britain on a Thursday afternoon and didn’t arrive until the Monday afternoon.”

NZ MASTERS GAMES 2012

Dunedin
February 4 – 12
www.nzmg.com

ENDS

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