Camas swimmer sets Masters record

In the final meters of a swim race, Christine McClafferty says there’s no time to breathe, feel tired or do anything besides give maximal effort.

That’s because in her decades of swimming, the 52-year-old Camas resident has seen races and records decided by the smallest of margins.

That’s what happened July 24, when McClafferty set a Masters world record in the 100-meter butterfly by just one-hundredth of a second.

The record swim came in a qualifying heat of the 2025 Oregon Swimming Long Course State Championships at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Ore. McClafferty touched the wall in 1 minute, 7.79 seconds to beat the 50-54 age group record held since 2011 by Jill Hernandez of Chico, Calif.

McClafferty went on to place eighth the following day in the finals, where no other qualifier was older than 19.

Yes, age is just a number and so are records. But behind those numbers is McClafferty’s story of rediscovering her love for swimming and how that sport has forged a deeper connection with two daughters.

A passion renewed

McClafferty does most of her daily training with the Tualatin Hills Barracudas adult swim team in Beaverton, Ore. Practice starts at 5 a.m., which means McClafferty’s alarm rings at 3:45 a.m.

After two hours of training, McClafferty heads back north to start her full-time job as a reading intervention specialist at Lincoln Elementary School in Vancouver.

McClafferty usually goes to sleep at 10 p.m. and rarely takes a day off from swimming. Short nights and long days are a price worth paying, she said.

“I love training and staying in shape,” she said. “As we get older we have such busy lives with children and with our jobs, I appreciate being in the water and letting go of all the other responsibilities you have in life.”

Such a schedule comes either from a genuine love for the sport or being deeply driven to succeed. There was no doubting McClafferty’s will to win in her youth.

Swimming under her maiden name, Christine Rylander won three state titles her senior year at Fort Vancouver High School. Winning the 50 freestyle, 100 free and 100 fly earned her high school All-American honors in 1991.

She received a swimming scholarship to the University of Nevada where she was the Big West Conference champion in the 100 free and 100 fly in 1993.

But after college, McClafferty no longer felt drawn to the sport she had done since age 7. She started a family, began her teaching career and took up running as her main form of exercise.

Twenty years away from the pool ended after McClafferty had her fourth child nine years ago. Her body didn’t react well when she tried running again, leading her back to the low-impact exercise of swimming.

Racing again soon followed.

“I had gotten tired of it,” McClafferty said. “But taking a break and coming back, I had this renewed love for it. Also, I felt less pressure as an adult. I wasn’t in college anymore. I didn’t have to swim specific events that my college coach made me swim. I could do whatever I wanted to.”

Family bonds forged in water

Few 52-year-olds can hold their own against young adults in any sport. McClafferty can, and she does so largely because of her 19-year-old daughter Camille McClafferty.

Like her mother, Camille began swimming at age 7. Her senior year at Union High, she placed seventh in the 500 free and 10th in the breaststroke at the Class 4A state meet, earning a spot on 2023 Columbian All-Region girls swimming team.

Camille is about to start her second year of swimming for the University of Puget Sound. She remembers being poolside after her mother returned to competitive racing.

“She’s been my inspiration since I was young,” Camille said. “If my mom can do it, I can do it too. Being behind the blocks with her and seeing how she deals with stress has definitely made me a better swimmer.”

When Camille had her own experience with burnout, her mom offered wisdom, support and space.

“I would say she kept me in the sport a lot longer than I would have been,” she said. “It gets hard because you do something for so long. There were points where I was like, ‘I don’t know. I’m kind of done.’ Talking with my mom, she was always like, ‘You can do whatever is best, but you’ve always had so much fun in the sport.’

“She made me fall back in love with it.”

Among those fun moments are when Camille and Christine swim on the same relay team at Masters meets, where the minimum age is 18. Camille’s club teammates at Vancouver-based Columbia River Swim Team perk up when Christine gets on the blocks for a race.

“My teammates know who she is and are always really excited to race against her,” Camille said. “She’s always so inspiring and makes a lot of people know how important this sport is. You can do it for a whole lifetime.”

McClafferty’s youngest child, Mavis, was the one whose birth set her mother on a course back to the pool. The 9-year-old is already a successful youth swimmer. Last month she placed in the top eight in five different events in the 10-under Oregon state championships, including fourth in the 200 free.

“She might end up being faster than all of us,” McClafferty said.

The McClaffertys agree that swimming has offered something far more important to their family than victories and medals.

“It has been such a good way for us to always connect,” McClafferty said. “There’s something so deep about it I can’t really explain it. It’s just what we do.”

A record-setting day

McClafferty didn’t enter last month’s meet at Mt. Hood aiming for a Masters record. Rather, it was a chance to compete in a 15-and-over event mostly filled with teenagers, including Camille.

“Every time I swim in a kids meet I’m always afraid I’m going to embarrass myself,” McClafferty said. “I get more anxious swimming in a kids meet than an adult meet. … I love to have other swimmers push me. It’s all about getting better times.”

McClafferty entered the 100 fly with a seeding time of 1:09.21. She hadn’t clocked a time faster than 1:08 in two years.

“I just thought I’m getting too old to do that,” she said. “I was accepting that every year you get a little slower.”

Once she hit the water, McClafferty said she felt relaxed and entered that flow state athletes try to reach.

“Just swimming and saying whatever happens, happens,” she said. “It makes you more relaxed and your swims are better.”

When McClafferty reached the finish, it wasn’t clear what her time was because she had mistakenly swam in the wrong lane. The board showed the record time of 1:07.79 belonging to the swimmer assigned to Lane 6, with McClafferty’s name appearing in Lane 7.

Excitement started to build once that issue was sorted out.

“They told me my time and that it seems like it could be a record,” McClafferty said. “We looked it up, I was like ‘Oh my God!’ ”

The meet was paused to celebrate the record, which has been submitted to World Aquatics for official certification.

Record in hand, McClafferty is set for her biggest meet of the summer this weekend. She will compete in the U.S. Masters Swimming National Championships, which will gather more than 1,100 swimmers Wednesday through Sunday at King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

While winning a national title would be nice, McClafferty’s goals revolve around swimming her best and reconnecting with the scores of friends she has made through competitive swimming.

“More than winning first place is trying to get your best times,” she said. “Have fun and be passionate about something.”