Author: Jay Loureiro

Our team of 21 Abbotsleigh swimmers competed at the Junior State Championships last weekend. As the meet to finish off the Long Course season for our Juniors, swimmers brought together the technique and skills they have been practicing to produce many great swims.

Swimmers had to nail their stroke in their breakouts and also control breathing in order to race well into the wall. In the 100m events, it was a chance to implement race plans, count strokes in order to produce the best race. We saw swimmers dare greatly and show resilience throughout the weekend. Swimmers focused on each race and did not avoid the challenge of executing their race plans. This resulted in many swimmers winning their heats and lots of strong personal bests. Swimmers also took lessons away from the meet to work on at training as we move into the Short Course season.

A highlight for the weekend was finishing the weekend coming in 5^th in the girls 10×50 freestyle relay. This was a great way to bring the team together for some fast swimming.

Our 4×50 Relay Teams took a combined total of 8.21 seconds off their entry time, showing how our swimmers put their all into these teams.

Top Ten Results:

Leona Huang – 4^th 9yrs 100 Backstroke, 5^th 9yrs 50 Breaststroke, 1^st 9yrs 50 Backstroke, 3^rd 9yrs 100 Freestyle

Alice Liu – 10^th 11yrs 100 Breaststroke, 7^th 11yrs 50 Breaststroke

Girls 9-12 10×50 Freestyle Relay 5^th

Thank you to parents for supporting swimmers and bringing them to the pool.

GO ABBOTSLEIGH!!

The best swimmers in Australia embark on NSW Open Championships in preparation for Olympic Trial in June.

The event provides great racing opportunities for swimmers to work on their improvements in the racing environment.

Our Abbotsleigh team had a blend of experience and freshness, with Shaun Champion sand Zac Attard refining their craft and our Age Nationals hopefuls raising to the high performance environment.

For some swimmers, this was the first exposure the best swimmers in the world. They warmed up with them, nearly got swam over and enjoyed the excitement of sharing pool deck and lanes many of their heroes.

This was a great chance to get a taste of what National championships is like. It is busy, warm up is chaos and you have to handle all of these elements to prepare for the actual racing.

With 3 weeks to go to Age Nationals swimmers, our 10 swimmers made the most of the race practice bringing home many learnings.

Shaun Champion showed his intent performing his best race skills against his peers. Shaun placed 2^nd in the 100m butterfly in 51.97 seconds and 3^rd in the 50m butterfly in 23.79, both season best times. Shaun will head to Open Nationals with Zac to continue his journey on the path towards the Olympic Trials in June.

It was the final race of the meet where our values shone brightest. Given a challenge to qualify a complete relay team for Age nationals Syesha Anthony, Grace Black, Audrey Jackson and Piper Marinas jumped at the prospect. Their challenge was to improve from their December State Championship effort of 4 minutes 10 seconds. With the qualifying time being 4.07, it needed to be a whole team effort to achieve this outcome.

At 8:35pm on Sunday night our girls swam their hearts out (after returning from camp on Friday), they all swam their personal best efforts, executing their race plans and swimming for each other. They qualified with a time of 4:06.9! a Massive four second improvement. It is incredible what a team can achieve.

Congratulations to our NSW Open Swimmers.

Abbotsleigh had 5 swimmers represent the SMNE at the Speedo State Finals. Swimmers were selected from the SMNE Heats, with the fastest 4 in each event and age group chosen to represent the SMNE team. To be selected to race at Speedo Finals is already a fantastic achievement in itself!

Swimmers had to dare greatly and stick to their race plans in the face of competition. This was clearly done well as nearly every swim was faster than what was swum at Speedo Heats with many personal bests achieved throughout the day. Our team supported each other through activation and warmups, right through to each other’s races. It was great to also support our SMNE relay teams in which Louis was selected to be a part of.

Results:

Louis

4^th Boys 10yrs 50 FLY

10^th Boys 10yrs 50 BK

9^th Boys 10yrs 50 FR

1^st Boys 8-10 4×50 FR Relay

Lucie

12^th Girls 8yrs 50 FLY

17^th Girls 8yrs 50 BK

11^th Girls 8yrs 50 BR

18^th Girls 8yrs 50 FR

Zoe

20^th Girls 11yrs 50 FLY

4^th Girls 11yrs 50 BR

Alice

13^th Girls 11yrs 50 BR

Harriet O’Hara

11^th Girls 9yrs 50 BR

Congratulations to Louis who participated in the SMNE Relay Team for the Boys 8-10 Freestyle Relay, the team took out first place.

Being 3 weeks from Junior State, this meet is great preparation as we head towards the end of our Summer season. Swimmers can now take what they learnt from the meet and start implementing it at training as we work towards Junior State.

LET’S GO ABBOTSLEIGH!

The Abbotsleigh had 15 swimmers competing at these championships. This by itself was already a success as in 2023 the Abbotsleigh swimming club only had 7 swimmers in this same meet.

As the meet started swimmers understood that the level of the field was high, clubs and swimmers use this meet as their final chance to get a national qualifying time and therefore the focus and intensity was high. Our Abbotsleigh team was prepared and rolled through their normal activation routine and got ready for the water warm-up. It’s great to see that our Senior swimmers are very autonomous and understand the importance of these routines.

As the meet started the results started coming up and Abbotsleigh was able to collect a total of 11 medals (5 gold/3 silver/ 3 Bronze) woohoo!!!

Our medal winners:

Emma Bao – Gold 50 breast & Silver 50 Fs

Audrey Jackson – Gold 50 Fs / Silver 50 Fly & Bronze 50 Bs

Marcus Primdal – Bronze 50 Fs

Shaun Champion- Gold 100 Fly,50Fly,200Fs / Silver 100 Fs

A special mention to Audrey Jackson achieving her Olympic Trials qualifying time for the 50 FS and Jensen Goodchild achieved his National qualifying time for the 200 FS.

We come back with lots of learning, specially with for our younger seniors and their race planning, but overall, it was a great meet for the Abbotsleigh swimming club and once again it Is clear that our foundations have been done well and swimmers are being efficient with their stroke and skills regardless of the meet, they are in. The commitment and belief are there. It is now time to keep on fine tuning in preparation for the 2024 Age national championships and beyond.

Go Abbotsleigh!!

This year’s SMNE Speedo Sprints Heats and 12&U Meet were held on the 11^th Feb down at Sydney Olympic Park. 28 Abbotsleigh swimmers competed in 50m and 100m events. Swimmers had to bring their best racing, executing strong starts and finishes to race to the wall. We had 5 relay teams compete on the day demonstrating Abbotsleigh Team Unity. Swimmers performed great finishes and starts to ensure our changeovers were quick.

Congratulations to April Avery who achieved the 100 Breaststroke national time.

A highlight of the day was watching swimmers rise to the challenge of racing the 100m freestyles and backstrokes after an already long day of racing, with many swimmers having already competed in 5 events. Swimmers did a fantastic job daring greatly and executing their race plans making sure they controlled technique and controlled speed to achieve some very successful swims.

The first four swimmers in each age group in the 50m events have been selected to compete at finals. Congratulations to the following swimmers for being selected to compete at the NSW Speedo Sprint Finals in March:

Louis Csirszka

Lucie Csirszka

Alison Deng

Zoe Durbidge

Talia Lam

Alice Liu

Harriet O’Hara

Many of our Abb swimmers kicked off 2024 with our Abb Camp. On the 22^nd-25^th January, 50 swimmers came together at the Abbotsleigh Aquatic Centre for the 4 day camp. Each day was filled with lots of swimming, dryland, and fun for the swimmers. It was fantastic to see so many swimmers leave with a smile each day.

Each morning commenced with dryland where swimmers practiced controlling their bodies and holding positions that are required to be efficient through the water. Lots of fun was had during dryland with a variety of games and challenges. The exercises were later applied in the pool as swimmers worked on holding good body position in the water.

In the pool, swimmers spent much time developing foundational technique that will help our swimmers long term as they continue to grow and develop. They were also learnt and refined racing skills including dives, turns and finishes that will help them put together stronger races.  On our final day swimmers accumulated what they had learnt, and raced individual events and relays. The opportunity to race and reflect on it allowed for swimmers to think about the technique and skills they put into the race.

Special thanks to Abbotsleigh swimmer Shaun Champion who shared on his experiences and lessons learnt at World Championships and brought in medals won at the 2022 World Championships in Melbourne. Also special thanks to Commonwealth Games swimmer, Meg Bailey for working with us for two of the days. Meg provided insights into what is required to be a high level of swimmer, focusing on the fundamentals of technique.

Bring on a great 2024!

NSW senior state age was an amazing way to finish the year of 2023. We had 17 swimmers competing at these championships where 3 of them were participating at this level for their first time.

This 6 day event provide swimmers (and parents and coaches) with the experience of heats and finals for each race in preparation for the 2024 National championships in the Gold Coast.

It was important for all swimmers to be focused on their process and be able to do and execute their plans under the shiny lights of Sydney Olympic Park and race against the best senior swimmers in the state. Our sense of community was visible on deck as our experienced swimmers and less experienced swimmers encouraging each other and taking an interest on how each Team Abb member performed.

We had  amazing performances all throughout  the meet.

Congratulations to our Medal Winners:

Shaun Champion – Silver 100 butterfly & 50 butterfly

Congratulations to our finalists

Audrey Jackson – 9^th in 50 Freestyle

Tina Chen – 10^th in 100 Breaststroke & 8^th in 200 Breaststroke

We also want to highlight the performance of our relay teams and thank you all the athletes that got selected and were able to join us in these exciting races and achieving these awesome results.

Girls 15-17 4×50 Freestyle relay – 10^th

Girls 12&O 10×50 Freestyle relay – 18^th

Girls 12-14 4×50 Medley relay – 20^th

After 6 days of racing there was still smiles in everyone’s faces and also lots of learning, it was a great meet and we cannot wait for next year. The girl also had the opportunity to have a quick chat with one of our Australian Dolphins Bronte Campbell

GO ABBOTSLEIGH!!

On the first day of summer the Abbotsleigh swim club had their annual Christmas party. All the swimmers got together and participated on the 2023 Christmas race league. The message to both teams was as usual Dare greatly and bring the best of their intent in any of the races. Some swimmers were put outside of their comfort zone swimming events that they normal do not swim.

It was great to see everyone’s energy and commitment to their own teams. As usual we had two teams: ORCAS & LIONS.

Orcas brought their best intent and were leading through the night, but on the last race – all team relay – Lions really dig deep within themselves and took the win and in this way, they were also able to gather enough points to get the overall win. UNITY & FUN was seen all over the night and coaches could not be happier. Seeing their athletes upholding the club Values, enjoying swimming and cheer for their teammates is amazing.

Recently, on the 25^th & 26^th November, 12 of our Team Abb swimmers competed at the NSW Junior Metropolitan Championships at SOPAC. This was the first Metro level meet for many of our swimmers.

Swimmers had worked hard to qualify for this meet and had the opportunity to execute what they had been working on. Swimmers came prepared for their races and carried out their warm ups and race prep with a high level of detail. Race plans were carried out and it was fantastic to see our swimmers race to the wall, executing their racing finishes well. Demonstrating our KAIZEN value, our swimmers came home with lessons and future areas of improvement ready to be implemented back at training as we work to continuously improving.

Team Abbotsleigh UNITY was seen across the weekend. It was fantastic to see swimmers supporting each other in their races with lots of cheering coming from the side of the pool. Swimmers also worked together through warmups and shared lunch breaks together as a team.

Congratulations to our Top 10 Finishes

Zoe Durbidge – 10th 11yrs girls 100 BR

Penelope Waterhouse – 5th 10yrs girls 50 BK 

Louis Csirszka – 2nd 11yrs boys 50 Fly, 7th 11yrs boys 100 FR, 4th 11yrs boys 50 FR, 3rd 11yrs boys 50 BK 

KAIZEN

DARE GREATLY

UNITY

FUN

SMNE Championships 2023 LC

On 4^th and 5^th of November the Abbotsleigh swim club team went to Sydney Olympic Park to race at SMNE. This is a competition with all the best in the Metro northeast area.

The Abbotsleigh swimming club had a team of 45 swimmers with a total of 180 individual entries and 20 relay teams. It was a meet full of fun moments and with a lot of good energy. The swimmers showed the ability to embrace the meet and focus when needed.

Some of the swimmers were for their very first-time racing in a meet like this and it was great to see their attention to every detail within the competition. These newcomers were also organised and keep themselves onto their routines, making the meet go smoothly and everyone knew when to be ready to Race.

 The team support that was felt throughout the meet was great and once again TEAM Abbotsleigh showed their spirit in staying together and supporting each teammate.

The Abbotsleigh swimming Club had a total of

1. 19 Top 5
2. 72 Top 10

A congratulation to all our Medalist:

Alice Liu – 3^rd 11yrs 100 BR, 3^rd 11yrs 50 BR

Grace Black – 3^rd 14yrs 50 BK

Tina Chen – 1^st 13yrs 100 BR, 1^st 13yrs 200 BR, 1^st 13yrs 50 BR

Penelope Waterhouse – 2^nd 10yrs 50 FR, 3^rd 10yrs 100 BK, 3^rd 10yrs 50 B

Louis Csirszka – 2^nd 10yrs 50 FR, 1^st 10yrs 50 FLY, 2^nd 10yrs 100 FR

Cameron Green – 3^rd 11yrs 100 FR

Joel Pagano – 2^nd 11yrs 100 BR, 2^nd 11yrs 50 FR, 3^rd 11yrs 50 FLY

Marcus Primdal – 3^rd 14yrs 50 BK

Shaun Champion – 1^st 15&O 100 FLY, 1^st 15&O 100 FR

We would like to give a special mention to all the swimmers that participate on the team relays, it was great to see their amazing team effort into representing our club in the best way they could. Relays are a very important part of swimming; they define the bond between teammates and our club values. – Kaizen, Dare greatly, Unity, Fun.

TOP 10 RELAYS

14&O Girls Medley Relay – 4^th – Grace Black, Claudia Liu, Jasmin Foster, Audrey Jackson

14&O Girls Free Relay – 5^th – Syesha Anthony, Piper Marinas, Audrey Jackson, Jasmin

14&O Boys Medley Relay – 8^th – Oliver Liu, Jensen Goodchild, Zac Attard, Marcus Primdal

14&O Boys Free Relay – 4^th – Zac Attard, Shaun Champion, Marcus Primdal, Jensen Goodchild

13&U Girls Medley Relay – 7^th – Alicia Chung, Tina Chen, April Avery, Tilly Mamo

13&U Girls Free Relay – 7^th – Tina Chen, April Avery, Tilly Mamo, Emily Lin

Go team ABB.