Few people would have started more races or inspected competitive swimmers’ movements more often than volunteer swimming official Mary McFarlane. This year McFarlane marks 56 years officiating poolside both locally and internationally.
On June 17, she turns 90.
As New Zealand’s oldest and longest serving swimming official, McFarlane has been splashed for longer than many competitive swimmers’ parents have been alive and dries herself down with a towel after each swimming session she officiates at.
McFarlane, from Otago, is not only the country’s oldest swimming official; she is also the shortest, at four foot nine “or maybe a bit shorter, now”. A medical condition meant she stopped growing before she became a teenager.
“I’m the oldest, the shortest, and the wrinkliest,” she says. “Because I’m so small, I always get wet right up to my neck.”
She is also one of the busiest. She still officiates at the top level in New Zealand having been a qualified starter for 42 years. In 2019, when she was a bit younger – well, 83 – she clocked up 232 hours poolside, more than any other official. This included a trip to the Pacific Games in Samoa. Her officiating hours are also right up there this year.
While she inspects swimmers’ turns, ensuring all rules are followed, has started races and held the timekeeper’s stopwatch, swimming bosses told her she was too short to walk down the side of the pool to judge swimmers’ stroking techniques, a role called ‘judge of stroke’.
“Damned if I know why,” she says. “They probably thought I was too short to see across four lanes, which is a load of rubbish.”
When aged nearly 80, she officiated internationally at the Commonwealth Youth Games; and was also a team manager at the Pan Pacific Games and Oceania Championships.
Earlier this month, despite recently breaking her toe, she started the races at the annual Mary McFarlane Classic at Dunedin’s Moana Pool. Just over a week later she officiated in Auckland at trials for the Commonwealth Games which are to be held in Glasgow in July.
The Mary McFarlane Classic is so named as a recognition of McFarlane’s years of service to the sport in the region and a cup is awarded to the athlete with the most points. She said she was not initially keen to have a swimming competition named after her.
“It’s embarrassing. I originally said ‘no, I don’t want it’. But they said, ‘we have to acknowledge you for the years you have put in’. I get the same enjoyment out of that as I do a national meet, I love watching the wee kids come through.”
McFarlane has been recognised in various ways over the past few years.
She is a cornerstone of the Otago swimming community, a life member of both Swimming New Zealand and Swimming Otago and is a former president and (since 2011) the current patron of the latter.In 2021, her contribution to swimming was further recognised when she received the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM).
She has closely witnessed the progress of swimmers such as Olympic double gold medallist Danyon Loader and former world champion Erika Fairweather, both of whom are from Otago. You can’t get closer than officiating poolside. She started officiating well before Loader was born, also observing the progress of thousands of other swimmers.
“I’ve loved watching the likes of Erika Fairweather, and Danyon Loader. I’ve watched those kids growing up from little kids to champions,” she says.
She says she is surprised New Zealand has not had an Olympic swimming medal since Loader’s double gold in 1996.
“I am, and I don’t know why the hell not … but you know, swimming has become a very expensive sport for parents, participants, officials, swimmers – everybody.”
McFarlane reads and knits every day. For 10 years from her 50s, she also had her pilot’s licence. She is regularly out to coffee mornings with friends. Having renewed her driver’s licence every two years, she is still regularly behind the wheel.
“Oh, hell yeah – I passed my licence very well last time,” she says.
She is incredibly active for someone about to be a nonagenarian.
“I haven’t got time to be a boring old fart,” she says.
At almost 90, is she living independently at home?
“I am – I haven’t died yet.”
For years she has also been up early four days a week to go to the gym – except in recent weeks.
“This is the 24th year but I can’t go just now because I’ve got a broken toe – and I’m just over a broken shoulder and a broken arm,” she says.
She’s probably also broken officiating records too.
In July, McFarlane is going to Africa for a month to meet her World Vision children she sponsors; one in Malawi and another in Uganda. It is a nicely timed trip. She leaves just after the Otago Secondary Schools Championships and gets back a couple of days before the start of the National Secondary Schools Championships in Auckland.
“This will be my fifth time – and probably my last,” she says. “It’s a great experience. I remember one time I went. The whole village welcomed me and this wee boy cried and cried. I asked what was wrong. He’d never seen a white person and thought I was a ghost!”
McFarlane is also a reader and writer for exams and assessments at the Otago Boys High School and Kings High School literacy programme, assisting students who have difficulty with reading and writing.
“It’s good for my brain; I’ve been doing that since I retired from full time teaching in 1997 – I was only 61 then,” the former St Clair Primary School teacher says.
Had McFarlane’s son Gregor not been diagnosed with chronic bronchitis in 1970, she would not have been involved in the sport of swimming at all. At the time she was busy being a pipe major of a pipe band and her two daughters were champion highland dancers.
“The doctor said, ‘I really think you should get [Gregor] into swimming,’ and I thought ‘Oh my God, I’ve only got Tuesday nights free’,” she recalls.
So, she enrolled her son into the Kiwi Swim Club because they met on Tuesdays, and she has been with the club ever since. Gregor McFarlane trained under Loader’s coach Duncan Laing, swimming put an end to his bronchitis, and in 1982 he later represented New Zealand at the now defunct New Zealand Games.
“Duncan and I were great mates,” McFarlane says.
Gregor McFarlane eventually stopped swimming; but his mum kept on officiating. She is Kiwi Swim Club’s patron, has been on the club’s governance board since 1974, is a member of the awards committee, but is no longer the chairperson.
“No, not now – I was 100 years ago – but I like going to meetings and seeing what’s happening,” she says.
McFarlane’s husband Paddy, who died in 2013, was a footballer, and a wing-half for the All Whites from the late 1950s with Duncan McVey, who happens to be the grandfather of Aquablack Michael Pickett, who held the 50m freestyle national record in 2024.
McFarlane says she has met many people through swimming, some who are lifelong friends – and it’s that social aspect that has kept her in the sport for many decades.
“It’s the people I have met over the years; it’s the enjoyment and the friends I’ve made through officiating, and the laughs that I have. They are friends for life. I’ve got my gym family, my own family, and the swimming family. There’s no way I could have done this by myself.
“Had Paddy been still alive I would have finished, but he’s not here and I’ve got to fill in my time somehow.”
McFarlane says she loves travelling; officiating has taken her to places around the country and internationally. She has also officiated at the Special Olympics, for those with intellectual disabilities.
“Last year I had four North Island trips – that’s not cheap,” she says.
She considers officials should be paid an allowance. “Yes, I do. But Swimming New Zealand doesn’t have the money.”
McFarlane was also involved with the New Zealand Royal Life Saving Society from her high school years. She became an instructor and examiner in 1954 and continued to examine for 51 years.
These days she can’t do as much as she used to. She no longer flies planes and can’t play heavy bagpipes now. At the pool, she used to pipe in athletes at the Division II national championships, adding a unique touch to events. She also can’t turn over the lap counters, required for races 400m or longer, or fit backstroke ledges to the pool wall which assists backstroke swimmers to start their races.
“I can’t reach them – and I hate them, anyway. But everyone is very accommodating,” she says.
While McFarlane is surprised she has stayed in the sport so long, she is unsure when she will eventually stop officiating at swimming competitions.
“I don’t know, maybe before I’m 95. I won’t be doing it when I’m 100, I’ll just stop one day.”
