Masters champion finds ocean of success in the pool
By Mike Tymn
Special to The Advertiser
It took 37 years for Betty Ann Barnett-Sallee to get back in the pool.
Mike Tymn photo
When she did, she made a very big splash.
Betty Ann Barnett-Sallee won four gold medals while breaking four national records in the 55-59 age division last month at the national masters short-course (yards) swimming championships in Santa Clara, Calif.
At the national masters short-course (yards) swimming championships in Santa Clara, Calif., last month, Barnett-Sallee won four gold medals while breaking four national records in the 55-59 age division.
She clocked 32.32 seconds in the 50-yard backstroke, 1:09.92 in the 100 backstroke, 2:33.59 in the 200 backstroke, and 2:36.07 in the 200 individual medley. The old records were 32.97, 1:11.11, 2:34.80, and 2:27.45, respectively.
Barnett-Sallee also brought home silver medals in the 100 IM (1:10.51) and the 200 free (2:16.09). In the 100 IM she was also under the old record, just a "touch" behind the winner.
"I was astounded," said Barnett-Sallee, a 55-year-old flight attendant who before this year last competed in the pool as a senior at Punahou School in 1964. "I really had no idea how I'd do. I did a few short races in a small meet in Kailua and had done a few time trials at UH, but I beat those times by four or five seconds."
At Punahou, Barnett-Sallee set a number of state records from 50 to 200 yards in the backstroke and in the individual medley. She also recalls breaking some national records. "It was my father's dream that I make it to the Olympics, but I don't recall that being my dream," she mused. "Actually, I peaked in 1962 and didn't really improve my last two years. I was content with what I did."
Although she gave up pool competition when she left Punahou, Barnett-Sallee competed nearly every year in the annual Waikiki Roughwater Swim on Labor Day. To the best of her recollection, she has won her age-division in 23 of 24 races in that event. She also competed in the North Shore Swim Series in 1997 and won her division in all four of those ocean swims. But it wasn't until this year that she got serious about competition and went back to the pool.
"A friend suggested that I could do well in the pool based on what I was doing in the ocean," she said. "He told me I had three months to train for the nationals. It brought out my competitive spirit, and so I decided to give it a try."
Barnett-Sallee does not consider the training she was doing before this year as serious training. "It was more of a relaxing, meditative type of swimming," she said. "I just love the ocean. I'd usually go out with fins, look for fish, do a little body surfing, that kind of thing. About a month before the Roughwater I'd take off the fins and try to get used to not wearing them. But the training was nothing compared to what I've been doing this year. I'm into it big time now."
Barnett-Sallee is now focusing on the North Shore swim series, which is scheduled to begin on June 23 with the Raging Isle Sprint.She doesn't find going from sprinting in the pool to endurance events in the ocean an especially difficult transition. "I manage to rise to the occasion," she said, laughing. "I don't consider one- or two-mile swims as real long distance."
"When you get up to 15 kilometers and 25 kilometers, that's long distance. I think all the swimming I have done in the ocean has given me the endurance base. Doing intervals in the pool at UH gave me the speed I needed for the nationals."
In preparing for the nationals, she was coached by Steve Borowski of Kona Aquatics and Joe Lileikis. "Steve really helped me with my start and the turns," she said.
During her Punahou years, Barnett-Sallee trained about two hours a day. Now, she averages an hour a day. As she looks ahead to the long-course (meters) championships in Seattle in August and the world championships in New Zealand next March, she is thinking about adding to her training.
"I don't see any reason why I can't do more than I've been doing," she said.
"It was an adjustment going from 20 to 25 minutes a day to an hour a day, but I think I can add to that. I'm very curious to see what I can do.
"I'm really enjoying this. I enjoy the lifestyle and the people associated with it."
