Former Aramoho man Brian Fothergill left for Brisbane "about 30 years ago" and since then has missed just one Masters Games.
Come hell or high water - and he pretty much experienced both in the past week - he will not be missing this one, starting early next month.
The perennial Wanganui Masters competitor will be here again after having lost just four trading days at his Brisbane comic shop.
His main aim?
To swim again in the Whanganui River event he first won in 1960.
Fothergill was pretty lucky in the Brisbane flood - he lives in the non-affected suburb of Mansfield and his CBD comic shop is located on the second floor of a building, and thus out of the water.
His only problem? No power for a few days, so he couldn't open. He said people had been extremely slow to come back into the Brisbane CBD anyway.
"I've had the comic shop for 32 years, and we were closed for three-to-four days.
"My shop is up high, but with no power you can't trade. But any places in basements in the city were all badly flooded.
"And people are very slow coming back into the city. There's still a lot of cleaning-up to do.
"People haven't been coming in to buy stuff because they're too busy cleaning-up their houses."
Fothergill reported two big thunderstorms on Wednesday and Thursday, the second one doing more damage around the city.
"Wind and rain, a lot of people copped it again."
But Fothergill said his home wasn't troubled.
"We're right out of the floods, we're as good as gold.
"It's only down by the river that they really copped it."
He'll be competing in bowls, pool swimming and open water swimming, including the river swim.
And this time he's trying something new. Kayaking, after trying it out on a recent trip to Europe.
As fit as he's been for a long time, Fothergill said he wanted to make sure he was involved in some sport every day.
"I'm reasonably fit, I've been swimming 3km each day, so there's no reason why I can't get into a kayak and make it go.
"In fact I'm the fittest I've been for years."
Fothergill leaving Oz floods for Masters
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