Category: News

As the last main preparation for Olympic trials, Sydney Open meet is a great chance to refine and practice racing. Shaun Champion raced his main races, applying his skills purposefully amongst his peers. Shaun swam another sub 52 swim, placing second in 51.99. Shaun was second in the 50 butterfly too. Shaun maximised his last major racing opportunity, working at his craft in  9 events throughout the 3 days. Shaun was  representing Abbotsleigh and his university, where he is studying Engineering: Shaun will now fine tune things as we step closer to the Olympic Trials in June.

Zac Attard carried his momentum form Australian Open Championships. Zac made his qualifying time for Trials at this meet, making our Team of 3 to Olympic Trials. In fine form, Zac made the A final in his pet event the 200m freestyle. Zac used his experience and knowledge in this race to improve his time from the morning heat to a faster finals time.

Zac is currently balancing his school teaching skills and his swimming ability, and his is also an Australian representative at 2017 World Junior Championships and a national short course title holder in the 200m freestyle. 

Audrey Jackson gave her best at the meet, with all intentions to practice her main race and a few more. Unfortunately Audrey was struck down with sickness, making a decision to look after herself with an aim to get better for her first experience going to a Trials meet. 

Piper Marinas had a breakthrough meet. Piper swam personal bests in the 50 backstroke, 100 backstroke, 50 freestyle, 50 butterfly and 200 backstroke. Piper also made the B final for the 200m backstroke. Pipers determination and commitment to each race presented her with the opportunity to experience a final. Piper handled her final well and improved the way she swam her morning swim. This was great reward for your attention to detail and perserverance. 

Congratulations to Shaun, Zac, Audrey and Piper for bringing their best to the meet.

Go Team Abb!

Zac Attard and Shaun Champion both swam well at the meet.

Shaun did his lifetime best performance in the 100 fly, finishing second in 51.28. 

Shaun has embraced learning opportunities from his experiences on the World Championship Team in Japan last year and at the World Cups. Since these events, Shaun has gone to work, he has extended himself and is putting into practice what he now knows. The results at this meet reflect this growth. 

Shaun also did a lifetime best in the 200 free, he did his fastest heat swim of 50 fly and 100 freestyle was consistently faster than it has been in 2 years. This is a great time to be making these improvements and in a range of distances and events. 

These performances are a result of Shaun’s willingness to push himself. His desire to be the best that he can be is something he is bringing to life and it something we at Abbotsleigh get to share and support this. Shaun’s 100 butterfly time is the 4th fastest swim ever by an Australian. Congratulations Shaun! We are with you on your quest for greatness, keep stepping your path.

Zac swam season best times and missed the Trials qualifying time by 0.2. Zac will attempt to qualify in May at the Sydney Open comp. Zac also swam his fastest 100m butterfly for the season too. Zac has learnt how to move and perform a good 100m swim, being able to put both freestyle and butterfly for his best season results.

Well done Shaun and Zac. You worked diligently at each pool session and you were sharp when the gun went off. 

Go Team Abb!

At our 13^th May Club Night, we announced the winners of our Easter Colouring Competition! Our Team Abb Swimmers were each given their blank colouring page and given a week to produce the best design.

Thank you to everyone who entered! The standard was amazing which made choosing winners very difficult. It was great to see our Abbotsleigh swimmers demonstrate their creative side with many thinking outside the box. Swimmers went above and beyond with their own additions and detailed backgrounds. We got to see fancy patterns, googly eyes and 3 dimensional gems. Some swimmers even gave their colouring different themes from Olympic and Abbotsleigh themes to some striking Shrek theming!

Shaun Champion judged our different entries. It was tough but he managed to narrow down his selection to 3 winners. Congratulations to the following prize recipients:

1^st – Leona Huang with her bright colours and incredibly detailed patterns

2^nd – April Avery with her googly eyes Paris 2024 Olympic theme

3^rd – Lauren Wei with her outside the box Shrek theme

Enjoy your prizes!

Gold coast was again the place of destination for the 2024 National age championships. The sun was out, and the athletes were ready to go. We start by congratulating our two first timers representing the Abbotsleigh swim Team at these championships, April Avery and Marcus Primdal joined the more experienced swimmers and perform in their first National age Championships.  The sense of team was clear and swimmers were supporting each other race after race and together they were able to put together their best races.

The meet started and we had Audrey Jackson representing the NSW State team in the 4×50 Fs relay, this is a team where four of the fastest freestylers in NSW get selected and race against the other states. The NSW state team got the gold medal in this event. How exciting for Audrey to be able to be part of this. 

In the same tone of excitement, this year, we also had a 4×100 Fs relay, composed by Audrey Jackson, Syesha Anthony, Piper Marinas and Grace Black. These girls qualified for this relay at NSW State open as a group and not with their individual times, this by itself shows their fire for the team and how far they can go to support their teammates. At National Ages championships this relay swam a little bit off their Personal team best but with the same fire and gutsy vibe. It was a great exhibition and gets everyone excited for what comes next year.

Audrey Jackson also qualified for the girls 16 years 50 Fs B final and in that final got top 14^th in Australia

Our new-comer Marcus Primdal was also able to qualify top 14^th in Australia for the 14 years old boys 50 Backstroke

Thank you also to all parents, without your support and commitment this would not be possible. The word TEAM includes each and every one of you and we appreciate your support towards us and our club.

Go Abbotsleigh !!

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!