As a coach, one of the things Kate Bolte loves most is seeing her swimmers' ambitions grow in tandem with their talent.
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Most kids who learn to swim do so out of necessity. Some then push on to become competitive. And a few, Bolte said, then dream even higher of Olympic glory and international success.
And nowhere, she said, inspires those aspirations quite like the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.
"It always feels like you've walked into greatness," Bolte said.
"You walk past all the Olympians' photos, their names on the wall, you've got their handprints, footprints, and it's inspirational to swimmers. You think 'Whoah, I'm in the building where some of the best of the best swum'."
This weekend, more 360 Scully Park swimmers will get the chance to experience that feeling at once than ever before at the Country Championships.
Having sent a group of three to the same event last year, Bolte will accompany eight to SOPAC this Friday.
"You can tell when swimmers are ready," she said.
"This year, we were working towards a whole bunch of swimmers going up. I knew they were going to be ready to go. [Last year] they had just joined the squad, so they were still building their fitness, their speed, and their understanding of how to race."
The squad, composed of Abbey Trewern, Lucie Purkiss, Caitlyn Costelloe, Sophie Rindfleish, Blair Bartlett, Savannah Mills, Adelaide Scanlon-Dawson, and Alexander Scanlon-Dawson, will share SOPAC with over 1,200 other people this weekend.
And while Bolte can see that the swimmers are "both nervous and excited", she wants to take the pressure off them and hopes they can enjoy the experience.
"Let's just go out there and experience it, and see what the higher level of swimming is like," she said.
"There's four swimmers I train who haven't been to Country Championships before. So they've got their PBs, they've got their qualifying times, let's just see how they go. There's no pressure or expectation on them."
The squad will also feature one relay team, made up of some of the younger swimmers who Bolte hopes will glean valuable experience from their time in Sydney.
"They've never done a Country Championship relay before," she said.
"They went in the relay at the area carnival, that was when they first competed together."
