Former St Matts student wins Masters Gold

Former St Matthews Collegiate student Kirsten Cameron made huge waves in swimming events at the World Masters Games held in Edmonton, Canada last month.
Cameron, who swims out of the Masterton Masters club, won five gold medals in the 30-34yrs age group and broke three New Zealand long course records previously held by one of the country's biggest names in swimming, Rebecca Perrot.
Her time in the 200m freestyle of 2min 10.52secs was well inside the previous record of 2min 12.41secs while in the 400m freestyle she clocked 4min 34.89secs compared to the old record of 4min 38.56secs.
Cameron's third record came in the 800m freestyle where her time of 9min 26.57secs was a major improvement on the previous best time of 9min 38.48secs.
In the 100m freestyle Cameron registered a time of 1min 1.80secs which was very close to Perrot's record of 1min 01.56secs and, apart from her winning efforts, she also did well to place third in the 50m freestyle (29.28secs) and fifth in her first-ever 3km open water swim (41min 47secs).
Another Masterton member to impress at the World Games swimming was Richard Parkes who competed in six events in the 30-34yrs age group, placing fifth in 58mins 51secs for the 3km open water swim and 10 th in the 800m freestyle in 12min 21.83secs.
Cameron, Parkes and a large team of Masterton Masters are now busy training for the 2005 North Island short course championships which are being held at Levin in early October. Masterton will host the 2006 North Island short course championships.