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Wednesday, 3 December 2014

At the tender age of 22, Ryan Whiddett, a client services assistant in the Careers Centre, competes in the Masters competition of his chosen sport, swimming.

While Olympic medallists get younger and younger, young adults like Ryan are happy to leave the youngsters to the stress of high level competition and enjoy the more relaxed pace of Masters meets...where he recently won nine medals and broke nine records.

What is ‘more relaxed' to Ryan and his co-competitors still sounds like a lot of effort.  He swims up to five kilometres before work, three mornings a week, in the pool at the School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health.

He is a graduate from the school and gave up his part-time job as a swimming coach when he began a full-time job in the Careers Centre (Student Services) this year.

"I train myself and while swimming for me has always been about fun and keeping fit, the competition gives me the motivation to keep going and push a bit harder," Ryan said.

His efforts were rewarded at last month's Pan Pacific Masters Games on the Gold Coast, where he won four gold four silver and a bronze.

He won a gold medal in the 400m individual medley (IM), two golds in freestyle, the 200m and the 400m, and one in his favourite stroke, breaststroke, the 200m.

Ryan's silver medals were earned in the 200m IM, the 50m freestyle and the 50m and 100m breaststroke races.

"I won the bronze as part of a 4 x 50m relay medley team, swimming with people from all around Australia whom I hadn't swum with before," he said. "I swam the butterfly leg - I think everybody else looked the other way!"

It comes as no surprise that he won the series in his age group.

Ryan competed in several Masters games this year, culminating in the Pan Pacific. "It's all self-funded but the opportunity to travel all over Australia is a thrill. In 2015, I hope to do one or two events but will certainly aim to take part in the Nationals in Hobart in April."

As a teenager, Ryan swam for Kwinana where he is now that club's President.

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