Members of the West Coast Swimming Club held an exciting point score event at the Port Lincoln Leisure Centre on Friday 16thof November which gave swimmers another important opportunity to post personal best times towards gauging the success of their training and improvements in personal fitness. Over 50 swimmers
ere registered for the evenings competition travelling from Lock, Tumby Bay and Cummins to have the chance to build their own personal sense of achievement and competency to swim at a competitive level. A resonating comment from one of our parents on the night was, “My daughter swims because she feels a real sense of achievement and pride in herself when she posts a personal best time – it’s quite underwater and she can concentrate on doing her best without her team mates or people yelling at her from the sidelines.” And WOW what a night for posting personal bests! Two goals that had been set from the last point score were to see Henry Lambert post a 50m freestyle time in under the current SA Country Record (held by Levi Proude) and Jade Calverly edge closer to the 1 minute mark for her 50m backstroke which would lower her potential world ranking, towards developing times good enough to see her in a Paralympic final in 2016. Two very excited swimmers left the water after their events, Henry Lambert with a 26.87 for his 50m freestyle (which would be good enough to break the existing record) and Jade Calverly with a 1.01.07 for her 50m backstroke which when compared to world rankings sees her 7th internationally and was nearly 3 seconds faster than her performance at last month’s event. Australian Paraylmpian Tanya Huebner (S6) has posted a time of 53.96 sec over this distance (7.11 sec faster) which is something Jade could put some serious thought into achieving considering her three second improvement in time over the past month. Two killer swims from breastroke specialist Luke Andrews over both the 50m and 200m distance yielded some very exciting results. His 200m breastroke swim of 2.40.34 was well under the Australian Age Qualifying time of 2.51.50 (15 year old) and within 9 seconds of qualifying for the Australian Open Swimming Championships (qualification must be in a 50m pool). He has improved a massive 10 seconds from the last time he swam in this event. This time is also clearly under the South Australian Open Country Record of 2.43.12. Similarly his 50m breastroke time was a personal best – 32.83 seconds, which is already close to two seconds faster than the existing country record (Levi Proude 34.37 – 50m pool). Luke could potentially give Ryan Mitchell’s South Australian 15 year old record a shakeup (31.29 – 50m pool) by the time the Country Championships are run. This is a record which has stood for over 10 years (set in 1993). Ryan Mitchell – originally a swimmer with the Port Augusta Swimming Club went on to win a silver medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics as part of the 4 x 100m Medley Relay Team. We welcome new swimmer Gerard Meyer who has provided another layer of depth to our senior swimming talent. Gerard posted times of 30.87 (50 freestyle), 40.48 (50m breastroke) and 37.51 (50m butterfly). It was fantastic to see Sheridan and Kendall Howell back in the water in preparation for our summer racing season, both posting very competitive times in all of their events. Both Natasha Hammond and Brooke Traegar swam great freestyle times –both on the 30 second mark which puts them with a great chance at the 13 year old South Australian Country Record (long course) of 30.10 seconds. Nik Constantinopoulos blasted out a great 50m freestyle (31.73) to set himself a new personal best and Harrison Adams tore up the pool in 38.10 to post the fastest 10 and under time. A real stand out personal best ‘smasher’ was Jack O’Donnell (10 years) who made some outstanding improvements across all of his events with both his freestyle (53.63) and breastroke (1.09.47) races up to 10 seconds faster than when he has raced previously at point score. Kilani Colman – Smith swam a superb 50m breastroke race (55.63) knocking over 6 seconds off his previous time and at 9 years of age was competitive against swimmers up to two years older than himself. Similarly in his 50 Butterfly he shaved off 7.47 seconds (1.06.60) Sisters Tayla and Indiah Kelsey had a very close tussle in the same 50m breastroke event with the younger of the two Tayla (8 years) edging out her older sister by .3 of a second (Tayla 1.07.60, Indiah 1.07.99) Stuart Meske made a great improvement in his 50m backstoke - amazingly swimming nearly 7 seconds faster than he had previously (53.38) and it won’t be long before we see him posting times in the 40 second bracket. The 50m butterfly event provided a powerful finish to the evening with coach Jason Dipaolo going head to head with Luke Andrews – the competition spurred Luke onto a personal best but just being edged out by Jason who swam the race in 30.18 sec. Zac Kenny (9 years) swam a super 50 Fly in (1.02.97) and it was very encouraging to see lots of our junior swimmers now with the skill and determination to be able to post times in this event. Well done to Charlee Watt (7 years) and Alleigh Hamnett who competing in this event for the first time. Thanks to those parents who have supported their children’s ability to swim competently by bringing them along for their first point score. Great work - Indiana Copland, Tascha and Fraser Jordison, Thomas Kammermann and Kayla Huntley. All swimmers are encouraged to make a record of their own personal best achievements over each stroke and distance. An efficient way of doing this is through an Iphone App called ‘PB Go’ this enables championship cards to be created with a record of your top 5 times, including a location and date. As nominations for swimming carnivals require accurate and up to date personal best records it is in your best interest to establish a regular and reliable way of recording your PB’s. More information on ‘PB Go’ is available on the website www.westcoastswimmingclub.com– Latest News.
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PB Go encourages young athletes to strive for their personal best in the pool. Have fun creating your own set of champion cards.
Here is an engaging way to store your Personal Best Times - I have tried a few different app's like this for my iphone and so far this one seems the most practical. Here's why I like it: ++ Trading card style design which is attractive and engaging to kids ++ You can email them as a picture from your phone. ++They store your top 5 times over any distance with a place to record the place (meet) and date that you recorded this time (Makes it alot easier to fill in those nomination forms for carnivals - PB's at your fingertips!) ++ You can upload a photo to the front of the card. ++ Easy to select events using the classic scrolling tool - trademark iphone technology ++ You can store more than one swimmer on the same phone There are features I haven't tried yet - you can export your PB's to excel for inclusion in a spreadsheet, there are celebration animations which sound cool too! You can download this app for $1.99 from the Itunes store via the link below. Swimmers again flexed their muscles at the West Coast Swimming Club’s most recent Point Score Event held on the 19th of October at the Port Lincoln Leisure Centre. Preparations are now in full swing for the summer racing season with swimmers having registered to compete at events in Roxby Downs, Crystal Brook and Port Augusta over the coming month. These are crucial events to chart competitors’progress towards qualification for the 2013 Country Swimming Championships, State and National Championships; all of which require official qualifying times to be achieved some months prior to the event.
Swimmers of the month were also awarded for September and October with congratulations to Ellie McInerney and Coen George (September) and Chris Bawden and Issy Scott (October). All of these swimmers have shown a dedication to attending and participating to their fullest during training sessions – respecting and rising to the challenges that their coaches have presented them with. The West Coast Swimming Club would like to acknowledge the support of McDonalds Port Lincoln for providing these incentive prizes. Stand out performances from point score firstly go to Henry Nelligan who swam an incredible 50m butterfly event to finish in 58.53 seconds – a massive improvement of 12.47 seconds on the last time he competed in the same race, and breaking the prized minute marker over this distance. Asha Edwards posted some amazing improvements in all 4 of the 50m events – one up to 20 seconds faster than previously recorded. She recorded the fastest time of the 11 year old female competitors in the backstroke (48.76). A wickedly fast swim from Yemaya Coleman – Smith in the 50 freestyle (36.13) saw her celebrating a new personal best with further improvements expected prior to the Country Championships. There is the potential for Yemaya to start edging towards the current South Australian Country Record for this event which is set at 32.78 seconds – only 3.35 seconds away. Jade Calverly was similarly very excited following her 50m backstroke swim with a 4 second personal best, edging her ever closer to going down under the minute mark over this distance (1.03.60). As a member of the Australian Youth Development Team for the 2016 Rio Paralympics, Jade is currently chasing a world ranking over a number of events. Racing against multiclass swimmers of the same classification internationally her time in this event currently has her ranked 9th . Breaking the minute mark could see her make a Paralympic final and down under 50 seconds in possible medal contention. Brooke Traeger is continuing to build fitness and held a great time over the 100m freestyle of 1.08.62. Xanthia Clark is clocking up plenty of pool miles and recorded a great improvement in all of her 50 m events – particularly her 50m freestyle (39.65) and 50m butterfly (53.00). Unstoppable Harrison Adams also blitzed the pool again in the 100m freestyle recording a time of 1.29.44 – as a 10 year old he will now be working on shaving off another 6 seconds to swim under the qualifying time of 1.22.81 set for the 11 and under age group at the Country Championships. Max Lambert swam an impressive butterfly race recording a personal best of 44.49 narrowly being beaten by the butterfly master Coen George (43.01). In fact all of our senior swimmers posted improvements which is just the motivation needed as they prepare to race in Roxby Downs, Crystal Brook and Port Augusta. Henry Lambert topped the 50m freestylers in an electric time of 27.47 seconds. The 14 year old current South Australian Country Male record is held by fellow West Coast Swimmer Levi Proude – set in Broken Hill (27.18) and Henry could give this record a real shake up in his next competition. To finish the evenings racing the 200m individual medley event was offered with Kellie Dennis, Victoria Henderson and Yemaya Coleman – Smith all to be congratulated for competing over this distance for the first time. The West Coast Swimming Club has also named their club captains for the 2012 / 2013 season. Congratulations to male co-captains Henry Lambert and Luke Andrews and female leaders Brooke Traeger (Captain) and Annabelle Nelligan (Vice-Captain). The club would also like to extend its thanks to other community users of the Port Lincoln Leisure Centre who have taken the time to share how important the availability of a community pool is to the maintenance of their health, well-being and sense of personal pride in their fitness. We are currently collecting information on opportunities for our swimmers to apply for grants to offset the cost of travel, entry fees, uniforms etc. Check out the grants link and if you have additional information which you think would be accessible to swimmers at Country Championship level and above or for our Multiclass compeditors email your information together with the link to any online application forms to our publicity officer, Sonia Ford.
Members from the West Coast Swimming Club say that it is critical planning for the new pool facility begins now to ensure it will open before the current Port Lincoln Leisure Centre facility at the marina closes in 2015.
The facility, owned by Sarin Group, will shut its doors in 2015, but a new facility for Port Lincoln is yet to be on the table as was promised in the lead up to the last council election in 2010. The club's president Todd George said the process must begin now to prevent a gap of time between the current facility closing and the new pool opening its doors. "It's critical to get a timeframe now otherwise there's going to be that gap," he said. "With the timeline to when this pool closes, you're looking at a year to build and 12 to 18 months to plan. "There is no room for overlap." He said it was important to recognise that not only Port Lincoln swimmers would be affected, as people from Lock, Tumby Bay, Cummins, Cleve and even Ceduna came to the pool regularly. Members say of the 130 children registered at the swimming club, more than half are now swimming competitively. All 130 of the registered children use the facility at the leisure centre a minimum of one to two times a week. West Coast Swimming Club member Sonia Ford said the swimming club was yet to receive a progress report or any information about a new facility from the Port Lincoln City Council. "I would like to see the money committed and I would like to see a time frame," she said. "I, for one, won't live in Port Lincoln if there is not a pool. "That's how important swimming is for me." Mrs Ford said with two children swimming and a third now learning how to swim, she had already put in a decade of commitment to ensuring her children were swimming competitively. "I'm at the point of enjoying it now after 10 years," she said. "We are down here for four hours at a time. "The idea of having a joint use facility on an education site would be ideal ... and I think the solution is just around the corner. "It's done, we need it in writing now." Fellow member Anne-Marie Hammond said the importance of the pool stretched further than just competitive swimming, it was also about teaching children how to swim, which she said was crucial considering Port Lincoln's coastal location. "The most critical thing to do as a parent in your life is to teach your kid to swim." she said. |
AUTHORSonia Ford is our publicity officer and would love to hear of noteworthy news items from our swimming community! |