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Traralgon Swimmers shine at National Short Course Championships
Score card: 2 finals, 2 semi finals, 25 individual events from 10 Traralgon swimmers and 3 relays and 16 out of Gippsland records over the period Saturday 20th to Wednesday 24th of September 2008. Some fantastic personal performances and some terrific relay efforts were on show at MSAC. For all the facts and figures, the reality is that this squad did us all proud. They competed at the highest level. They had fun, achieved some of their goals and showed they could work as a team. Veronica Roberts was fantastic as the resident masseuse relieving the tired muscles and our club showed we can match it with the best clubs in the country. Some highlights include:-
Jeremy
Meyer produced some great efforts to become the first Traralgon swimmer
to make a National Open final. His Championship included 4th
place in the 200 metre breaststroke 2:13.62 and 5th place in
the 100 metre breaststroke event 1:02.87. Jeremy produced strong swims
when it counted with his great finish in the 200 breast event a
highlight. Jeremy also swam in 2 record breaking relays. As a result of
his individual efforts he has been selected as part of the Junior Pan
Pacific team which travels to Guam in January 2009 to compete against
other swimming nations that boarder the Pacific Ocean. He earns another
stamp for his passport! Kirsten Lieshout became the first (non MD) female Gippsland swimmer to earn a place in a National Open semi final finishing 14th in the 50 metres breaststroke with a time of 33.19. In her heat Kirsten swam a time of 33.02 earning a new 16 years & open out of Gippsland record. Kirsten followed up with a great swim in the 100 metres breast 1:13.10 to finish 22nd. Kirsten also swam in a record breaking relay. Jeremy Saunders swam in 4 individual events earning a place in the 100 IM semi final finishing 13th with a time of 57.57. This was a fantastic swim and confirms Jeremy’s place as a nationally recognised individually medley swimmer. He was an integral part in the 2 record breaking relays over the Championships. Ben Geard will always be known as our first semi final swimmer at National level but this weekend he juggled duties as coach and competitor. He swam in 6 events with 4 pbs finishing just outside the semi finals on 2 occasions. In his 100 breast we challenged Ben to lift his game. He took 2 seconds off his long standing pb leading his heat all the way to finish 17th overall. The same time in last year’s event would have earned Ben a semi final position. Stephanie Morgan swam in 2 events. In the 200 Butterfly Steph earned a new out of Gippsland record for both 16 years and Open with a time of 2:17.64 coming in 20th in a strong field. Andrew O’Connor swam in 4 events including the 100m backstroke in which he broke the 17 & O and Open Out of Gippsland Records (58.08) and 2 record breaking relays.
Matthew
Dinsmore, Brenton Ford, Sarah Berryman and Brayden Waltham all swam in
one individual race. Sarah & Brayden earned the qualifying times for the
Open Championships at the Victorian Age SC Championship. Brayden really
gave it a go and went out hard to test himself;
his heat split of
26.76 for 50m butterfly broke the 16 years Out of Gippsland record. Fine relays are a Traralgon tradition and at these championships it was no exception. The men’s 4 x 100 free broke the out of Gippsland record by over 6 seconds. The team of Ben Geard 52.49, Jeremy Saunders 50.64, Jeremy Meyer 52.58 & Andrew O’Connor 52.32 lifted their ranking from 16th to 10th during the race.
The
women’s 4 x 100 metre Medley relay was a great race. The girls finished
10th from 10 entrants. Whilst this does not sound spectacular
the four women acted like a team, set their goals and exceeded them.
They also had loads of fun and enjoyed the race. The team of Alice
Lieshout 1:08.08, Kristen Lieshout 1:13.26, Stephanie Morgan 1:03.28 &
Sarah Berryman 59.94 took a combined 13.58 seconds off the 16 years &
open records set by another Traralgon team in 2000. For Sarah this was
the first time she has gone under the magic minute mark. The last event of the championships for Traralgon was the Men’s 4 x 100 metre medley relay. Our team of Ben Geard 58.78, Jeremy Meyer 1:01.73, Andrew O’Connor 57.57 & brought home by Jeremy Saunders 50.90, took 4.77 off their record set at last year’s Championships. Jeremy Meyers split was the 3rd fastest of the race and the first time he has gone under 1:02.
Congratulations to the Traralgon National Open swimmers! |
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