Carterton?s Angus Burney has cause to celebrate

There was special cause for celebration for Carterton's Jills Angus Burney when she was part of the winning women's team when the second event in the Sovereign ocean swim series was staged in Wellington harbour late last month.
Burney had felt she had let team-mates Caroline West and Robyn East, both of Wellington, down with a below - par effort in the first race of the series in Auckland in November and was desperate to be of much greater value to them on this occasion.
"Auckland was pretty terrible for me?it could hardly been worse," Burney recalled. "Caroline and Robyn did their bit but I was too slow and that put us out of it."
Burney said the effects of hypothermia had played a part in her Auckland disappointment, which saw her complete the 2.8km in 1hrs 24mins, well outside what she had anticipated.
In fact, at the last world Masters championships she had clocked 1hr 10mins for a 3km sea swim in San Francisco Harbour.
"It was very cold in Auckland and I just didn't handle it," she said. "And the sea was very bumpy and that didn't help either."
Burney said her experience at Auckland had made her nervous going into the Wellington event but with the weather and sea conditions there ideal any thoughts of another failure had quickly dissapated.
And with East completing the 2.8kms there in 49mins, West in 50mins and Burney in 52mins the team entered as Barb's Snappers comfortably took out the women's title.
It was a result which Burney admits came as a surprise.
"If we all had good swims we knew could be competitive but to win, no, that was something we certainly hadn't counted on," she said.
Making their success even more notable was that with East aged 61, Burney 46 and West 36 they were not exactly the youngest competitors in the event either , not that the trio themselves ever saw that as a handicap.
"You don't go into these sort of races thinking about age, we never even considered that side of it," Burney said.
The next Sovereign series event is scheduled for Christchurch this coming weekend and Burney will be there. This time though she is likely to be competing as an individual as both West and East are "very doubtful" starters.
But the threesome will definitely team up together when the fourth of the five-race series heads to Tauranga in early March with victory in the teams event there foremost in their thoughts.
"Now we've done it once we want to do it again, just to show it was no fluke," Burney said.