Category: News

Fresh off the plane from Adelaide, some of our squad headed straight to Homebush. Despite the draw of Taylor Swift in the ANZ Stadium, Abbotsleigh was at Sopac for a diving clinic with Job the NSWIS Biomechanist.

Administrative challenges meant that ‘cards on the concrete’ was incorporated into the dry land program. As soon as the deck of cards was swapped for the pool deck it was time to focus on body angles, dive entry points and distance. All of this was observed, measured and critiqued by Job with his armoury of underwater cameras and microprocessors.

The Australian SC Championships are on at Sopac currently so there was some additional excitement for the squad. ‘Chris the Pres’ challenged Australian Head Coach Jacco Verhaeren, Swimmming Australia Head of High Performance Wayne Lomas, and Australian Olympic Team Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller to a little race. A few eager fans then grabbed Bronte and Cate Campbell for some photos.

Amy and Georgia then headed off to see Taylor Swift, and everyone else returned home to empty their bags and wash their laundry.

When the Pacific School Games kicked off in Adelaide on Saturday Abbotsleigh immediately stamped its authority on the event with gold medals in both the boys and girls events. Continue reading “Black and Gold turn Blue”

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”

“Count every lap, and make every lap count” is a familiar refrain from our awesome coaching team. And if there was a theme for the club year then that would surely qualify.

In the hectic schedule of everyday life and training it can sometimes be difficult to sit back and appreciate the enormity of progress. Our recent annual presentation night provided such an opportunity. And for those disinterested in the significance, there was ample pizza and cake to fuel even the most starving of swimmers. Continue reading “Celebrating a year of commitment”

13th October was a significant day for Geoff, Lexie and Erin because it was their last ever club committee meeting.

Between the 3 of them they have given more than a decade of time to the swim club through their committee work. Amongst many things, Geoff has led the organisation and running of club night in recent times, Lexie has been minute taker and meeting organiser extraordinaire, and Erin has supported club decision making.

Despite their ‘retirement’, Geoff is kindly continuing to organise club night for the rest of this term, and Lexie was seen wielding a pen at the recent AGM. Old habits die hard!

Thank you and well done – your immense contributions will be missed.

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!

Well, as they say in the classics, “That’s a wrap!”  Bus, luggage and team all safely back in Sydney.

Sunday brought the final pool swim – a gruelling 8km, 3 hour session to close the camp. With all swimmers doing themselves proud in closing out the week well.  Water Warriors – Tom P (awarded the first ever double WW), Holly, Maddy, Georgia P and Claudi.

It was then back for breakfast, presentation and final pack up.  Harry and Tom P took the opportunity to take up the Weetbix Challenge with Tom P getting through 21 Weetbix in a sitting! – Gross.

We then held the Presentation with the coaches and “the bus driver” all having parting motivational speeches to the team.  The team leaders thanked the managers and coaches with heartfelt speeches and gave gifts.  It was then time to pack and have a final swim at the beach before packing the bus and heading to the airport.

And so to the big Team Award.

The Winning Team goes to……………… Continue reading “Noosa Camp Day 6 – The Wrap Up”

The team was up 15min earlier today as the coaches wished to do the activation on the beach today before heading to the pool to do a mammoth 16 x 400m. Again the coaches were left inspired by the efforts of the whole team and unable to name just one Water Warrior. Each coach named 3 WW each. The Water Warriors this morning were Tom, Kaea, Shaun, Jaimey, Georgia P, Sam D, Adri, Maddie, Em Ong – awesome job.

Following the session, the team headed back to the Retreat for a big pancake breakfast.  120 pancakes were consumed by the team and I need to make a special mention of Cal who helped cook the pancakes for the team. Saying that, it was noticed that he made himself a pancake with the final mix that resembled a large car tyre.

It was then off to Beach War Games which is one of the highlights of the week.  Multiple events were hosted with each team pitted against the other including, mutli-discipline relays both in the water and out (sometimes with an eating component as well) , tug-o-war, team ironman, and the infamous fort-building ball wars.  It was a hard fought day with the eventual winners being Fishion Possible over the Northern Knights.

Another highlight of the Games was the Coaches (including Chris) v the Boys tug-o-war. Not wanting to boast, but Boys came a very brave second – maybe next year lads!

For the last dinner, we went out to the Peregian Hotel for dinner to treat the team after a great week of effort and concentration.  It was nice to see everyone out of their swimmers and t-shirts and dressed up.

One more sleep to go with a 3 hour session planned by the coaches in the morning before the final presentations and trip home.

Final point scores and awards will be announced in tomorrow’s final camp blog.

Look out Kelly Slater and Mick Fanning.  The Abbotsleigh team tore up the waves at Coolum Beach today.  If any of the team turn professional, at least we know they can swim if their leg-rope breaks.

But first,

The team went-off in the pool this morning as another quality session was set by the coaches.  Individual pockets of brilliance were plenty with an amazing amount of consistent effort shown by everyone.  As an observer, definitely most impressive session so far.  As such, the coaches struggled to name just a couple of swimmers and therefore agreed to name 3 Water Warriors each. The Water Warriors for this morning’s tough session were : Claudia, Georgia P, Sammy, Petro, Jaimey, Loz, Maddy, Em Booth, Abby.

After another good quality session, the team refuelled, re-sunscreened  and then headed down to the Coolum Surfing School to learn how to surf.  The conditions were perfect with a half-metre of consistent swell breaking on a low tide bank.  There was next to no wind and not a cloud in the sky. If ever there was a day or a place to learn to surf, this was it.

The team was broken into three groups with an instructor for each group.  After a brief safety talk, it was down to the beach to begin the lesson.  Each instructor explained the basics and had everyone practicing on the sand for 10min before we hit the water.  For most, this was the first experience of surfing but there was no fear in getting into the waves and by the end of the sessions all the team were standing up on the waves.

This afternoon the team jumped in with Graeme Brewer’s Noosa Aquatic team to do a joint session.  The session was set and run by Leanne and Graeme.  Great fun and lots of fast swimming as the team made some new friends. Water Warriors this afternoon were Kaea, Cal, Jacqui.

Tonight was a Master Chef competition with each team having to prepare pizzas for themselves and also one for the judges. The teams were judged on teamwork, creativity, leaving the kitchens clean when finished, and of course quality of pizza and supporting salad.  There were a variety of pizza flavours from the teams including a Chocolate Pizza from the Northern Knights.  The winners however were the Apeeling Banana Llamas who were award with the best pizza and second best salad.

Tomorrow – our last full day which will include the beach games.

 

 

A massive day of training and fun for the team again today after a great night of skits. Last night each team competed with their own interpretation of the female team leaders “other interests” and it would be remiss of me not to give a special mention of the comedic talents of Sam Druce, and surprise singing voice of Shaun Champion.

The team was again up at 6am and off to the pool.  After running through some more core strength floating-starfish drills, there was a tough main set from the coaches – Leanne’s “Jungle Set”, had everyone red faced and puffing by the end.  Water Warriors this morning, were Annika, Holly, Tom, Belle, Soph and Ashton who all did a fantastic job.

But that wasn’t all before breakfast. The team were dropped 3 km from the accommodation to run the beach-path home.  Great running performances by Tom, Amy and Cal as they set off from the start at a cracking pace and quickly separated themselves from the group.  Sadly, being particularly enthusiastic to get going, they didn’t catch all the instructions for the run which meant they missed the final path to the resort and ended up running an extra 1km.  – Something about hare and tortoise springs to mind.

After a nutritious breakfast of eggs, haloumi, cereal, toast, fruit, sausages, juice (and I suspect some may have eaten the paper plates their food was on) the team had 30min to get ready for the ocean swim at Noosa Heads.  There we were met by Graeme Brewer (Bronze Medallist in the 200m free at the 1980 Olympics) for a 2km ocean swim along the Noosa headland. The conditions were flat, we had Chris and Raf on boards, Graeme on a ski and Leanne and Brandon in the water swimming with the team.  This was the first ocean swim for many, but after today’s experience I am sure not the last.  The water was clear and about 22 degrees which was perfect for a warm day like today.  After swimming for about 1km the team regathered and were given the option to head back or swim for another 500m.  All but 6 headed back to the shore, and whilst you would imagine that it was the older boys, I am happy to report it was 6 of the less experienced girls who led the charge to swim-on.  Led by Soph and Adri, Petro, Holly, Maddy and Annika headed another 500m out with Brandon, and Chris to check out the sea life.  For most of these girls it was their first long ocean swim and they took to it like experienced professionals showing the boys up.

It was then back to the mess hall (ok, the converted garage) for more fuel before heading out to the pool again for the afternoon session. Highlight of the session was a 50m effort by everyone, with Maddy Robinson taking home the points (500) for the biggest PB! – great job Maddy!

Tonight’s entertainment was the dress-up night with Trivia, Music Bingo, and a juggling contest. Each team dressed up in a theme that linked to their team name resulting in hilarious explanations for ridiculous costumes.  Highlights included Charles in a huge blonde wig and Harry in a corset! – Tears of laughter

The finale of the night was the team captains singing Vance Joy’s – Riptide with Amy doing an amazing job playing the Ukulele in support.

For those interested, the Current Team point score stands as follows:

1. The 7 Dwarfs (7880)
2. The Rain breakers (7470)
3. Fishion Possible (6695)
4. Apeeling banana Llamas (6050)
5. Northern Knights (5745)

Tomorrow -2 swims and a surfing lesson.