PBs the aim for Carterton athlete

Achieving personal best times is the prime objective for Carterton swimmer Jills Angus Burney when she represents New Zealand at the World Out Games in Montreal and the World Masters Games in San Francisco over the next month.
Burney, 46, freely concedes the opposition at both meets will be formidable so rather than focusing on winning medals in the 45yrs-49yrs age groups she is looking to lower her best times in each of her events.
"It's more about being happy with my own performances rather than where I actually finish," she said. "Obviously it would be nice to get a medal but I'm not really expecting it to happen."
Burney, who works in Wellington as an industrial lawyer specialising in ACC, is travelling to the Out Games-formerly known as the Gay Games-with her partner Judie Alison (nee Falloon) , a policy advisor for the Secondary Schools Union in Wellington,who is attending a conference coinciding with the sporting festivities there.
Two men from Martinborough and another woman from Carterton will be others amongst the expected 13,000 participants, the men in the swimming and the woman in golf.
Burney herself will compete in no fewer than three freestyle events in Montreal over distances of 400m, 800m and 400m as well as the 50m butterfly And she will also take part in a triathlon which will involve a 750m swim, 20km bike ride and 5km run.
In San Francisco at the World Masters Games she will contest the 400m freestyle and the 50m butterfly as well as a sea swim over 3km.There too she also intends to take part in a fun swim over 1.4km where the centre of activity will be the famed Alcatraz Island.
Swimming has long been a favourite pastime for Burney, even in the days when she was a champion shearer.
The world record lamb shearing title she set in the King Country in January 1989 actually still stands.Interestingly enough she worked for the Fagans then and one of her workmates was none other than David Fagan, many times a winner of the premier title at Masterton's Golden Shears.
Burney too has been a regular competitor at the Golden Shears, winning the women's title twice before it was taken from the programme, and she is a past holder of the New Zealand Merino sheep shearing title, which she won against male opposition at Alexandra some 20 years ago.
For Burney swimming was always treated as a means of relaxation away from the shearing sheds although it had the advantage of keeping her fit as well.
"Shearing and swimming seemed to work in quite nicely together, one sort of complemented the other," she said.
Through most of her swimming though Burney has concentrated on freestyle events and she admits to a little trepidation at the thought of contesting the 50m butterfly in both Montreal and San Francisco.
This is because she has only been doing butterfly for less than 12 months and despite making the qualifying times for the two Games she sees herself as still being very much a learner in that particular stroke.
"Freestyle will be fine but the butterfly - well, that should be interesting," she said.