Girls and Boys swimming on Sydney's Upper North Shore
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I am happy to report a well-attended weekend from Abbotsleigh. Generally speaking the coaches and I are super happy with the majority of the swimmers and how they conducted themselves and how they raced. Our relays placed very well even without our fastest teams entered. Another great fact was that every swimmer that raced earnt points for Abbotsleigh thus it was truly a team effort this weekend. Continue reading “SMNE Summer Championships”
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What a fantastic way to spend your hard earned training deposits – on a 5km open water race at the Olympic regatta centre in Penrith. I was fortunate enough to coach in the outdoors, power walking (whilst performing the Aussie Haka – all the way) along the course with all the spectators and puppy dogs. Cal Trethowan, Tom Peregrina and Zali Gordon all raced at the Nepean Open Water event.
With a huge crowd, a short peaceful warm up and then into the big blue for the race against the likes of Olympian Jarred Port – off they went for their glorious distance swim. Tom being his first race saw him swim cautiously for the first 2.5km and then take in the last 2.5km – albeit crooked without his wingman Cal. Cal swam a pretty good time for the opening season swim and was a great comrade for Tom to have sharing very generously his open water knowledge. Tom swam approx. 1hour and 3 mins with Cal not far behind in just under 1 hr. and 5 mins. Both boys qualifying not only for age Nationals but Open Nationals as well. Zali swam the 2.5km for the second year in a row and improved on her best time with a 46 min swim.
I urge all pool swimmers to give this a go. It’s quite a challenge with a great vibe under the beautiful scorching Penrith sun!
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Here I am with Katie and Tash at the Swimming Australia Talent ID camp in Canberra. The gentleman between Katie and I is Glenn Beringen the National Youth Coach.
Newsflash!!
CONGRATULATIONS TO SHAUN CHAMPION, NATASHA RAMSDEN AND KAEA BIDOIS FOR BEING SELECTED TO COMPETE FOR NSW ON THE 2015 STATE OF ORIGIN TEAM.
We are very proud of you all and wish you the best at the clash of the States and territories to be help from September 23-27th at the AIS in Canberra.
Hi Team Abb
We had a great day yesterday at the Carlile cup. Overall some fantastic results and a fine amount of PB’s. Reflecting and comparing to this time last year – the coaches and I are super happy with the increase in skill level from Abb swimmers. We were also impressed with the swimmers sticking to race plans and in some cases trying new events and new strategies. As always great to see the kids hanging out together and supporting each other. Although not all, but most do need to improve their self-management skills by wearing warmer clothes and completing swim downs and warm ups. The preparation is also a part of putting together a great race. Mostly a fine result and it seems we are in a good place at the beginning of our winter campaign. Keep up the skill training and do the work and things will continue to improve. As always input equals output.
We have decided to award and reward swimmer of the meet per squad. It was tough to decide as so many swimmers did so many great things but the stand outs were;
Junior Challenge – Claudia Freeman – great skills and very good at listening to the coach. Smiling always!
White Squad – Carolyn Nifnafs for her huge program and continuous gutsy racing and big smiles after every race. Pb’s galore and with so much respect for her coach Rafa extreme passion for the sport.
Black squad – Maddie Robinson for her awesome attitude, great race plan execution, happy face and huge pb’s.
Gold squad – Jacquie Feurtado – Tough, skilful, respectful, happy and forever gracious – and lots of pb’s.
Thank you to the parents who helped with our club duties of time keeping and officiating.
Leanne Speechley
I’d like to congratulate Brandon Lawrence on receiving his Silver Coaching Licence.
To receive this Brandon had to have 6 or more swimmers achieve Australian national Age Qualifying times, attend a 5 day course held at the Australia Swimming Coaches Conference and complete work books to prove he was capable and knowledgeable in the areas of; technique and skills in swimming, progression, season planning, race planning, talent ID systems, race footage analysis, nutrition and hydration for swimmers, core/dryland programming and injury prevention.
Brandon is now part of an elite group of coaches in Australia and we are very lucky to have him on our team.
Leanne Speechley
Congratulations to our Abbotsleigh swim Club swimmers who earnt themselves a place on the prestigious NSW selection squads. This is a fine reward for all your great training and racing at both State and Nationals in 2015. You have all made us very proud here at Abbotsleigh.
Natasha Ramsden
Katie Strachan
Rebecca St Vincent
Annabelle Druce
Kaea Bidois
Charles Marais
Georgia O’Connor
Annika Tonuri
Hi All
Attached is the report for the NSW State Championships 2015. Apologies for the lateness of this. We wanted to get things right and with the bigger team this took some time.
This year’s report is very positive and exciting. We are beginning to gather more stats and they are all moving in the right direction.
Enjoy the reading!
Leanne.
2015 NSW state champs LC report (Team)
2015 NSW state champs LC report (Individuals)
Photos courtesy of Kris Austin Marketing.
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Hi Team Abb
Please see attached Metro report, Metro point score and the Team photos!
We nailed it!
Thank you to all swimmers, parents and coaches!
Regards
Leanne Speechley
Head Swimming Coach