KOOTINGAL-Moonbi may look to expand its annual carnival to two days next year.
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Scully Park has tried it and Tamworth City is doing the same for its carnival next month.
It’s something Kooty its looking at after its record-breaking carnival on Sunday.
More than 200 swimmers took part in the carnival, which was 30 up on last year.
Entries were also up by almost 200.
The huge numbers meant they had to start earlier and drop the relays to fit everything in.
Not that coaches Graham Johnstone and Greg Poetschka are complaining.
They’ve been behind building the club to the strong position it is. It now has about 80 swimmers, 50 of whom competed on Sunday.
Johnstone couldn’t put his finger on exactly why the carnival is so popular.
“There’s a lot of juniors coming through, probably in most clubs,” he said.
“That’s helped the numbers. It was also good to see a lot of older kids competing.”
One of the reasons for that was they had cash for the over 13s.
Along with the regular events, they also held Dash for Cashes in three age groups – 10&U, 11-3yrs and 14 and over.
The host club did well in the qualifying.
It had a swimmer qualify in every age.
On top of the record numbers, Johnstone reckoned it was the best they’d had in terms of quality.
He mentioned the likes of Sawtell’s Luke Mallia.
He’s a national breakstroker, he said, and had come over to try to get a national qualifying time.
A number of the Kooty swimmers picked up medals.
The club now has three coaches, with Maddie Robinson coming on board as the junior squad coach.
It has this year split them into three squads with Robinson looking after the juniors, Johnstone training D&C grade and Poetschka A&B grade.