Tamworth City Swimming Club’s “tremendous” performance at the weekend’s Country Championships is a testament to not only their hard work but their team ethos club coach Nicholas Monet said.
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Four of the Sharks contingent finished on the podium, headlined by Connor Roberts, who won gold in the 16-years boys 100m butterfly with a personal best 59.03sescs.
A “big pb”, Roberts’ time also qualified him for the nationals.
“He swam well in December at state, he made the final,” Monet said.
“After [that] we kept working.”
Roberts also won bronze in the 200m with a swim of 2mins 17.49secs. Only his fourth 200m butterfly, Monet said he went a bit hard early and ran out of a bit of steam.
Alex Hayes was another to star, claiming silver in the 12-years girls 100m and 200m breaststroke. Both events she swum pb’s, shaving almost four seconds off in the 200m (2mins 48.02secs) and two in the 100m (1min 17.12secs).
She isn’t eligible to go to nationals because of her age but on times has swum fast enough in both distances.
“Nationals start at 13 but already she four seconds off (below) the nationals standard in 200m and nearly two seconds off in the 100 breaststroke. It showed lots of potential,” Monet said.
Mikaela Short also picked up bronze in the 14-years girls 100m butterfly (1min 06.35secs) while Brinez Lantz won his first country medal touching second in the 14-years boys 50m free in 25.95secs.
“It was a national time for him in the 50m too, and he was pretty close on the other distances in freestyle,” he said.
Coming to the end of their cycle Monet praised their attitude, remarking that their attitude and hard work at training enabled them to achieve the great results they did.
It wasn’t so much the individual performances though that he was so pleased about but the fact that all the team did so well.
Tamworth City was placed 24th out of the 111 clubs that competed based on the accumulated points of the 18 swimmers. Many of the swimmers recorded personal bests with 28 achieving top 10 placings in their respective events.
Six relay teams also finished in the top 10 and swam state qualifying times, as did a number of the swimmers individually.
“It is very difficult training what they doing, lots of kilometres,” Monet said.
“Just to compete at country level you have to swim every day and every week, and in the winter too.”
It takes a team effort to succeed, not only among the swimmers themselves but they need the support of the committee and the parents.
“It’s why I’m very confident of the potential of this group and the club in general,” he said.
“Because in training they act as a team. They support each other, encourage each other.”
Monet also made mention of Anna Cross. Competing in the multi-class events she also qualified for nationals.
