Forbes Triathlon committee members Nick Field and Nick Turner say online registrations have been double that of this time last year, in the lead up to this Sunday’s event.

Limited registrations may be taken on the day if capacity is not reached before then, but Field said it looks likely this year’s triathlon, the second to be held in Forbes, will be the biggest yet. The race will include swimming, cycling and running, but different distances have been included in this year’s event.

There will be Olympic, sprint and enticer distances, with Olympic being the professional standard distance, while sprint and enticer distances will be much shorter. The Olympic distances for swimming, cycling and running will be 1500 metres, two laps of 20km, and two laps of 5km respectively.

There will also be a division for children under 10 years of age with much shorter distances. Each event will start and finish at Lake Forbes on Bedgerabong Road. Turner said having three different race lengths for each discipline was good for enticing the whole community to get involved.

“Every event has different lengths, but we’re just trying to cater for everybody,” he said. “The Olympic distances seem to have attracted a crew from afar, and we’ve got some really good athletes from Bathurst,
Orange and Dubbo that have already registered online.” “The shorter ones are about trying to get a fit for the local people to get them involved, and hopefully the distances aren’t too strenuous for them.”

Turner said while the flat terrain in Forbes made it an attractive event for professional athletes to break personal best results, the event was more for locals to get a feel for how triathlons work. “What we want to do is provide an opportunity for people in the area to do a triathlon and see how it all evolves.

If it keeps growing like the way it is, maybe we can do something larger down the track and have a real marquee event,” he said. Turner expected there to be a great spectacle for spectators on Sunday as well, with athletes such as last year’s women’s winner Caroline Wolfson from Orange, Tyse Hurst from Dubbo and Nick North from Bathurst set to race.

“A lot of good athletes have elected to come here this weekend instead of Huskisson [large South Coast triathlon], so word has obviously got around that this was a well-run event last year,” he said. Spectating will be free of charge, and cyclists are being asked to be mindful there will still be other traffic on Bedgereabong Road.

The Forbes Basketball Association will rise from the ashes this year and restart competition after 15 years in the wilderness. The re-establishment of the association has been nine months in the making, after a number of now current committee members came together with their children wanting to play basketball.

Officials from Basketball NSW attended a meeting with them last year and gave them recognition, and competition is expected to start in the coming weeks. A registration day was held last Saturday where around 40 people registered, and it is hoped the same number will register again this Saturday.

Games will be held at the South Circle sports fields basketball courts and age divisions will be 10 years and under, under 12s, under 14s, under 16s and under 18s. At this stage divisions will depend on player numbers, and there will only be junior teams.

Association committee member Gavin Montgomery said competition would run during school terms throughout the year. “We’re going to run a three on three [players on court] competition in the first term before we move to full teams [five on five] in the winter competition in terms two and three,” Montgomery said.

The association has received various grants to help kick-start competition, and will spend funding from Member for Orange Andrew Gee’s office to build lights at the basketball courts, enabling night competition.

Forbes Diggers Swimming Club president David Sly said Tuesday’s Australia Day races were the best attended in the club’s history. Hot and sunny conditions on the day attracted 76 competitors of all ages across the junior, senior, Tom Drane Memorial, and scratch divisions.

Even Forbes Australia Day Ambassador Tracy Mann took a dip, despite still recovering from her frozen shoulder condition. Mann’s husband Scott Hartford-Davis, a seasoned long distance swimmer, also participated, while Forbes Shire Council mayor Phyllis Miller was on deck to support the event.

Sly said the event has grown every year, and he expects this to keep happening in the future. “We had great weather for the event, and this year has been the biggest we’ve had so far,” he said.

“We had great assistance from everyone who helped put the event together, including the Forbes Shire Council, and I’d like to thank them for what they did as well.” Mann said although she has never been a strong swimmer, she thoroughly enjoyed time in the water on Tuesday. “The water was just gorgeous,” she said. “I’m still recovering from frozen shoulder, so I could only do breaststroke, but I was really happy to do it just to be involved.” “I raced with the kids, but they gave me a head start. I needed it, but they still beat me.”

The main event was the Tom Drane Memorial Trophy, commemorating the founder of the Diggers Swimming Club.
This was won by Brendan Hayes, who swam a total of 80 metres in 23 seconds. Siobhan O’Malley took out the junior 50 metre, while Georgia Haggarty won the junior 30 metre. In the seniors, Scott Mattiske won the 50 metre race, while the 30 metre was a three way dead heat.

Scratch division winners Ellie Mattiske, Tom Mattiske, Darci Morrison and Joe Maitland. The Diggers Swimming Club run events for all ages with handicaps, in line with the ANZAC soldiers who returned home after WWI and recovered from their injuries in the swimming pool, with a wide range of capabilities. The club’s next event is the Western Region AIF Carnival on February 15.

The Forbes Diggers Swimming Club has a very busy schedule for the next month starting on Tuesday with the Annual Australia Day Family Community Swim commencing at 10.00am at the Forbes Town Pool. Swimmers of all ages and abilities are encouraged to come along and compete for the coveted Tom Drane Memorial Trophy.

Swimmers must nominate a time for the 30m and 50m events and the winner is the person who swims closest to their nominated times. The margins between 1st, 2nd & 3rd placings, in previous years has been extremely close and it is anticipated that this year will be no different. The club will host the Forbes Australia Day Ambassador, Actor and TV Presenter, Tracy Mann, for a delicious lunch and call upon her to present the trophies to the winners at the conclusion. It is hoped that Tracy may even partake in the Ladies scratch event and enjoy the wonderful facilities Forbes has to offer.

Forbes Shire Council are now partners in the event and the small, but hard working committee are most grateful for their generous support. The next event on the clubs busy schedule is the Western Districts Air & Infantry Forces (AIF) Carnival which will be held on Sunday 14th February. Nominations for this event are already coming in as many visiting swimmers are planning to make a weekend of it attending the Bedgerabong races the day before. The venue for this carnival is rotated amongst the 8 – 10 clubs who generally support this event. The events, in the true spirit of Diggers swimming are handicapped as normal and entry is open to all interested swimmers. The AIF carnival will commence at 9am and registrations will be taken on the day.

The Tim Baass Memorial Swim on the 28th February will be the last major event for the club for this season. The family swim is a fundraising event to support local charities in memory of a member who was tragically killed in a farm accident 23 years ago.

Construction work started for the new public amenities at Stephan Field on Tuesday, in a move Forbes Mayor Phyllis Miller said was well overdue. The old building was demolished on Tuesday morning and temporary amenities will be available until the installation of the pre-fabricated block is completed at the end of February.

The construction of the new public amenities block is stage two of the work being completed at Stephan Field. Stage one was creating an extension to the canteen area for the Forbes Netball Association to use as an office and storeroom. Mayor Phyllis Miller said the new public amenities would be fantastic. “The block was definitely due for an upgrade and we are pleased to be able to provide a brand new facility to the community and the Forbes Netball Association,” Mayor Miller said.

Once complete, the amenities will include one accessible unisex toilet, one ambulant unisex toilet, one female toilet and one men’s urinal for public use and six unisex toilets for use by the Forbes Netball Association or other high demand events requiring higher toilet facilities. The public toilets will be accessible 24 hours and will face back towards Woolworths.

Walgett was the last place local girl, Eliza Woods, thought she would be this year when she took on some holiday employment as a pickup driver for Australian hang gliders Len Paton, Bill Schroder, Guy Hubbard and Neil Halshall.

However Woods picked up her crew from Tullibigeal, Lake Cargelligo, Budda Budah, Molong and Walgett, which was a recordbreaking day. She amassed more than 900km of driving and over 10 hours of travel in her journeys.
Pickup destinations were unknown to her until the briefing was held each morning of the eight day competition, highlighting her incredible commitment to the team. Members of her team did very well across the competition, with Len Paton coming in at second place on the last day, but it was Jon Durand, from the Gold Coast, who was the overall winner.

On the first and last day of the competition hang gliders completed a diamond and a triangular course that began and finished at the Forbes Aerodrome, even though the course was in excess of 100km in distance. Daily destinations were announced each morning after natural factors such as wind direction and weather conditions were considered, with a couple of days cancelled due to rain.

The hang gliders receive points each day based on their results with the aim to go the furthest distance in the shortest amount of time. Briefing each day commenced at 10am with start times ranging from 11.45am to 12.30pm.
Hang gliders had a staggered start and many caught up to and even overtook each other as the race progressed.

This is the second year Eliza has been a pickup driver for the championships and has thoroughly enjoyed the experience both times and is keen to sign up again next year if study commitments allow.