Sport: Pool Sharks

With 10,000 public pools to slosh in, crack swimmers have increased 200% since the water-wing days of competitive swimming. Consequently, the turnover in swimming champions is probably greater than in any other U. S. sport.

Last week, in Buffalo’s Athletic Club pool, this year’s national swimming and diving champions won their titles. Outstanding performances:

Patty Aspinall, 14-year-old Indianapolis minnow, set a new U. S. record for the 220-yd. breast stroke — 3 min., 7.8 sec., 1.2 sec. better than the mark set last summer by Japanese Fujiko Katsutani of Honolulu. Little Patty used the exhausting butterfly stroke (an overarm stroke as in the crawl, with both arms moving together) for the full 220 yards.

Nancy Merlci, perky 15-year-old Portland, Ore. schoolgirl, who took up swimming five years ago to help recovery from infantile paralysis, kept her 440-yd. freestyle title in the near-record-breaking time of 5 min., 30.1 sec.

Helene Rains, 16, won the 300-yd. medley (breast stroke, backstroke, crawl) in 4 min., 4.9 sec. Besides swimming, Miss Rains, a Manhattan music student, plays the piano, clarinet, bassoon, oboe, flute and saxophone, studies tap, toe, adagio and acrobatic dancing. In spare moments she paints.

Helen Perry, 21, of Cleveland, in the 100-yd. backstroke final, beat glamorous Gloria Callen, 17, defending champion, in a fingernail finish—which took the judges fully five minutes to decide. Time: i min., 9.7 sec.

Other titleholders: Patricia McWhorter (100-yd. free style), Dorothy Leonard (220-yd. free style), Helen Crlenkovich (highboard dive), Anne Ross (low-board dive).

On hand to award the prizes was full-blown Eleanor Holm Rose, perennial backstroke champion from 1928 to 1936. Said she: “It seems funny to be dry.”