Category: News

National swimmers, their parents and siblings were educated and entertained my a highly motivating talk from Olympian John Farrow today.

John is a winter Olympian in the very scary sport of Skeleton. He told his amazing story of being “a naturally talented but lazy athlete” who excelled in Athletics, Rugby and then International Mountain Biking before converting to Skeleton.

He drew multiple parallels between the Swimming and Skeleton sports as he skilfully told his story alongside teaching key techniques to successfully perform at the highest level. DIY prosthetics, jellyfish and fast cars all featured in his engaging tale of success and resilience.

We were truly privileged to host John. Personally I was amazed at the number of different take-aways that audience members were excitedly discussing afterwards. We look forward to watching John in future.

Considering the amount of One Direction that Brandon endured in the car on the way to Homebush, he was remarkably happy. Raf and Tim most probably weren’t listening to Abba (who?) in the bus. Regardless of the musical entertainment on the way, the excitement really kicked in when 40 Abbotsleigh swimmers and their parents arrived to cheer along Australian swimming stars at the National Open Swimming Championships.

First up, Magnussen vs. McEvoy in a brief and massive surge of fast moving white water, more commonly known as the mens 50m freestyle. The Campbell sisters did their thing, Gina Rinehart did hers (not swimming); and Chris our pres was on duty for TV interviews, medal presentations and feeding his girls their dinner.

This was no ordinary visit to SOPAC. Many thanks for all those that put together an exciting and memorable night.

The just released current season swimming rankings reflect many great results for our Club swimmers. Leanne and Brandon’s hard work, commitment and motivational skills aligned with the swimmers solid work ethic has resulted in many outstanding achievements.

Congratulations to all swimmers on your outstanding results against the best age swimmers in Australia.

See the PDF file here which lists the Abbotsleigh swimmers position in the top 25 national long course rankings.

Well done to all! Abbotsleigh is on the march.

Note: a new ‘National Rankings’ page has been added to the website under ‘Information’ to allow easy future reference.

Our coaches and many of the girls in Abbotsleigh Swim Club compete for the school. Today the school swim team won IGSSA.

The Independent Girls’ Schools Swimming Association (IGSSA) annual carnival is the pinnacle of competition between member schools. Held at Sopac, over a thousand supporters are bussed in from across the State to cheer along their swimmers. The announcer struggles to be heard and the floor moves under the weight of passionate crowds jumping in unison.

The carnival is all about team. Swimmers may swim a maximum of 4 events and points are awarded according to placings in events. The team with the highest number of points wins. There is intense rivalry between teams – Abbotsleigh last won in 2010 and were determined to claim back the title from PLC Sydney who had triumphed every year since.

Abbotsleigh swimmers swam very controlled races in the morning heats to secure places in the finals. In the afternoon they were unleashed to swim their best. Abbotsleigh took an early points lead with impressive freestyle performances, but PLC Sydney fought back to lead during the form strokes. With 1 event to go only 2 points separated Abbotsleigh from PLC Sydney, and so it all came down to the 6 x 50m all age freestyle relay. PLC had taken line honours during the heats, could Abbotsleigh create some magic in the final?

Mrs Poole, Mrs Wheatley, Mr Everingham, Mr Baltitude, Leanne, Brandon, the parents, the whole Sopac audience, and the entire Abbotsleigh swimming team watched as Holly Nelson confidently climbed onto the blocks to launch our winning bid. 2’49.71″ later Abbotsleigh hit the wall first in a record breaking time and the celebrations started.

Abbotsleigh set 6 new IGSSA records and 1 new State record (pending official confirmation) during the day. Special mention also goes to our club swimmers competing for other schools.

Thanks to Tim Ong for these great photos. Videos of all the finals are available here.

Thanks to Marilyn Gordon for these photos of our team.