After a solid week of the sun doing its very best to prove that it rules the roost, the fabulous Dubbo Ducks descended upon Dubbo RSL indoor pool for our meet on Sunday, February 1.

Attendees there found that their very cool sponsor, the one-and-only Dick Smith Transport of Dubbo, had quite incredibly trucked in an iceberg all the way from Antarctica, so we could play at being penguins for the day!

Back to competition, 28 contestants were presented with a four-event card with the first contest, a 25-metre freestyle club event against the clock, with the heats for this race deciding the winner of the Dick Smith Transport trophy.

Mal Cavanagh took home the silverware in this event with a great swim just 0.01 of a second outside his handicap time. Well done, Mal!

Final placings for the 25-metre freestyle club event were: in fifth spot was Jacob Pearce, fourth was Rob Rich, third was Peter Hargreaves, second was Judy Walsh, and a well-deserved first went to Glenn Smith.

A 25-metre backstroke and 25-metre breaststroke return brace relay was up next with the Neil Harris/Lydia Barling combo much too fast and breaking through their time to hand Peter Allen and Dick Whiteford first place. John Wherrit/David Sparkes were in second, Jack Allen/Mal Cavanagh third, and Peter Hargreaves/Nicole Johnstone grabbed fourth.

A hotly-contested individual medley consisting of 25-metre breaststroke and 25-metre freestyle on the return was the next event on the card with Peter and Jack Allen competing against each other. Ron Everett also swam beautifully, but they broke the handicapper’s estimated set-times, handing the masterful Mark Scullard a well-deserved first place with Nicole Johnstone second.

The “At Go” event for the morning was not everyone's favourite, a 25-metre butterfly, but the Ducks lined up one-and-all to make a decent show of it with the top five touching in very close to their mark.

In first place was Katharine O'Rourke at (0.05 seconds), second was Craig Ross (0.36 seconds), third was Marg Ross (0.40 seconds), fourth was David Sparkes (0.49 seconds), and in fifth was Peter Allen (0.54 seconds).

Special thanks to Brian Schoeffel, who managed the judging line on the day with some very close finishes indeed. Lucky number winners were Louise Taylor and David Sparkes.

We wish our team members heading to Cobar this coming weekend for the Western Districts Swimming Championships a strong and consistent day of swimming. The Cobar Championships are a marquee social and swimming event on all club calendars throughout the region, and our team stands a good chance of bringing some of the trophies.

Swim well, team, Dubbo has got your back!

For other swimmers, Dubbo Ducks will of course continue regardless and so we will gather again this Sunday in the Dubbo RSL indoor pool. If you can swim, why not take the plunge and join in?

For all enquiries, contact Henry whose details are found under Sunday in the Dubbo Photo News Community Diary.

That's it for this week’s tidings from the “Duckpond”.