The St Peter’s Club swimmers show off their medal haul.
Twenty six swimmers from the St Peter’s Swim Club took the town-of-champions status to Australia recently with fantastic results. Competing at the South Australian Short Course Swimming Championships over July 18 – 22 in Adelaide, the team brought home a massive total of 48 medals.
“The team had an outstanding success rate with all improving their rankings and almost all of our team coming away with huge personal best swims across all their events,” said the squad’s head coach Aly Fitch.
Rylee Britton, William Crofskey, Liam Elliott, Amelia Glover, Sarah Wilson, Caleb Thomas, Tyler Tapper, Anna Smith, Chelsea Sharp, Jade Morrison, Luke Mitchell, Eve McCormack, Boston Haddon and Thomas Griffin all picked up multiple medals at the event, including 15 medals for Luke, eight for Thomas, six each for Anna and Caleb and five for Eve.
“I would describe it as a one of a kind,” Anna said of the experience. “I was lucky to be in the age group I was in, 13 and under, the 14 year old age group was harder,” said Anna, who turned 14 last Saturday, just after the competition ended.
Eight-medal winner Thomas said socializing with the whole squad was a highlight, as well as competing against Australian swimmers. “There were definitely some fast ones,” he said.
“It was great,” Rylee added, “the (swimming pool) complex was amazing… It was a great experience.” After just three hours sleep, Rylee managed to shave a massive seven seconds off her PB time in the 200m breast stroke, 0.2 seconds off the Waikato record. “I was really happy with that,” she said.
“I had a lot of fun, me and all the team mates,” said Caleb.
“I really enjoyed it,” added William. “It was my second time and I improved on last year so that was good, got more PBs and a medal.”
Tyler said a highlight from the trip was racing in the evenings, when team morale was at its peak. “It was just a nice atmosphere, the team got behind us and all that,” he said.
Several members of the team, including Caleb Thomas, Eve McCormack, Amelia Glover, Jade Houston, Anna Smith, Boston Haddon and Liam Elliott, made qualifying times for the national champs, with several improving their rankings and shaving considerable time of their PBs (personal best swim times).
“It was wonderful to see all the swimmers step up and fight in their races,” said Fitch. “To come away from a tour with such a big personal-best swim rate is awesome, and was a great reward for all the team who trained so hard and committed so much to achieving their goals.
“For all of them it is a fantastic step on their progression as young athletes and I know they all have come back so motivated to step up even more over the summer months.”
The young swimmers said they wished to thank Fitch, as well as team managers Jo Blackwood and Phil Price, for doing such a great job supporting them in Australia.
