"Let the gooa times roll" --The Cars

PROVIDENCE--The hard rock sound of the Cars blasting in a corner of the cavernous Smith Center during the final warm-ups last night couldn't have been more prophetic, for when the first night of the Women's Ivy League Swim Championships ended, new records had been set in almost every contest--the clear demonstration of the rising caliber of Ivy League swimming.

After the first day of competition, Princeton stood in first place with 391 points, closely followed by Brown with 383 1/2 and Harvard with 207 1/2. The competition this year is much fiercer than it was last spring when Princeton dominated the contest by over 400 points.

Bruin freshman Elaine Palmer was clearly the star of the meet, grabbing two first places in the 500-yd. freestyle and the 200-yd. backstroke with record smashing times of 4:59.89 and 2:05.62.

Before a deafeningly vocal home crowd of supporters, Palmer pulled away from teammate. Carol Downey at the 400-yd. mark of the 500 free to win by a mere half-second. Her victory in the 200 back was more clear cut--Palmer touched a full two seconds ahead of Kaili Chun to become the meet's first double winner.

The only other person to win two individual events was Princeton junior Charlotte Tiedemann, who won the 50-yd. breaststroke and 200-yd. individual medley with fast clockings of 30.75 and 2:08.97--the breaststroke time being a slight improvement over her own meet record of last year.

By far the best Crimson performances of the day came from the four woman diving corps of Joanne Robinson, Adriana Holy, Pam Stone and Cathy Josman. Entering the final three dives of the 11-dive competition, Holy was seeded first, Stone was a close fourth, and Josman was seventh.

When the one-meter contest was over, however, Holy was the clear champion with 433 points, followed by Stone in second place with 413 points. Princeton's Mary Lincer and Chris Moses--who prevailed against Stone and Holy in the dual meet two weeks ago--were third and fourth respectively.

"I haven't felt these feelings inside since the 1972 Olympics when I saw my diver (Craig Lincoln) stand up on those blocks and get his medal," diving coach John Walker enthused after the meet.

The most outstanding swim of the night for the Crimson came from sophomore Maureen Gildea. Swimming as the twelfth seed in the 500-yd. freestyle, Gildea overpowered the consolation heat, to knock eight seconds off her time and finish with the seventh fastest time.

Gildea, who's been swimming three workouts a day recently in an attempt to overcome a series of painful knee operations, is now approaching the peak condition that made her last year's Ivy mile champ. "It feels great to be coming back," she said happily after the race.