Nothing much could stop the mighty Dubbo Ducks making their way to the Dubbo RSL indoor pool last Sunday, August 23, especially with the prestigious Tom Flynn Iron Man trophy on the line.

This is no ordinary trophy race, this is the Tom Flynn and it's a race run annually to celebrate one of the greatest of the true iron men this neck of the woods has ever seen. He swam with the Ducks, a mighty fine bloke, his very first lap four times grabbed the rope, but he never gave up and never gave in, his form improved and his personality flooded in. One of the greats swam amongst us: the Iron Man, Tom Flynn.

A two-event card was contested. First up was a 2x25m breaststroke brace relay. There were a lot of nerves on the morning with only three teams resisting breaking to make it into the final and then we saw only two teams out of the three take a place. The combination of Warren Williams/Rob Rich a tenth too fast; Neil Harris/Mal Cavanagh took the gold, silver went to Louise Poulain/David Sparkes.

Next up was the Tom Flynn Iron Man Trophy, contested since 2001, a 4x25m four-stroke individual medley against handicap. Swimmers are awarded points for each stroke on a closest to handicap time basis, with the results then tallied up and handed over to the Time Lord to be kept in the Vault until the placegetters are announced at our Night of Nights in May 2027. What you can be told is the first four all had totals of over twenty points and that is pretty amazing.

Lucky numbers: Mal Cavanagh and Henry Wilcockson. Massive thanks to Tom, Nicole, Greg and Judy, who helped keep the timekeeping flowing and counting the starts. Our mornings would never run so smoothly without our non-swimmers still rolling out of bed to participate in the merriment.

Congratulations are in order for Rob Rich, who has now completed 650 swims!

A special hello to Glenn Smith, a long time member of the Ducks, we miss you mate!

We swim on Sunday mornings and all abilities and ages are welcome. See our details in the Diary section of the Dubbo Photo News under Sunday.

That's this week's tidings from the Duckpond.