Olympic Gold Medallist Lara Davenport confirmed for our presentation night

Hi All Club members and their Families,

Please see attached invitation to our annual swim club presentation.

You will see we have jazzed it up and hence expect it to be a fun and rewarding night for all.

We are lucky to have secured Olympic Gold Medallists – Lara Davenport to speak and present awards.
See a link to Lara’s Wikipedia page.

Lara is renowned for relating equally well to both children and adults. Lara is a fantastic role model and has a great story to share that will inspire all walks of life – especially swimmers. Her determination is second to none. You are guaranteed to enjoy Lara’s presentation.

Don’t forget to RSVP to Fiona!

Good luck Kaea, Katie and Keely at Schools Nationals!

Kaea Bidois, Katie Strachan and Keely Allsop will be representing their schools at the Australian Schools National Swimming Championship at the Vic Centre in Melbourne next week. The whole club wishes them all the very best.

Qualifying for this event requires stamina and consistent top performance over many months. Swimmers need to be successful at every stage in the competition – starting with their school swimming carnival in January, through Zone, Area and State.

Abbotsleigh Coaches on representative teams

Abbotsleigh Swimming Club would like to congratulate our fabulous coaches on their recent nominations to representative teams. Our Head Coach, Leanne, has been selected as a coach on the NSW Emerging Talent Squad team whilst Brandon has been selected onto the NSW Junior Sharks team. Both Raf and Brandon have also been selected as SMNE Coaches with Brandon heading up the “C” squad and Raf as a coach with the Green Squad. This is a great acknowledgement of the skill and knowledge these coaches bring to our program and the continuing commitment they make to both Abbotsleigh and our sport.

Abbotsleigh Top 15 at Sydney Metro Champs

A great result from the team again at the NSW Metro Winter Champs last weekend. Finishing 15th on the overall pointscore. The great news was that we were the 3rd placed SMNE team and only 9 points from being the second placed SMNE team! Congratulations to the whole team who competed on the weekend and the coaches who are always instrumental to our success.

Full point scores here.

Abbotsleigh tops Cup visitors

At the Carlile Speedo Cup on 1st June 2014 Abbotsleigh achieved the highest point score for a visiting club. We were competing against some of the biggest and best clubs across Sydney so this is a massive result for us. And there’s more! Our very own Matt Kelly won the men’s ‘best swim FINA points’ award. For these dual accomplishments Abbotsleigh wins $1,000 and Matt $250. Well done team Abb!

Congratulations for State Squad selections

7 Abbotsleigh swimmers have been selected for prestigious State squads. Congratulations and well done to Winona Lu and Becca St Vincent who joins the Junior Sharks; Annabel Druce, Matt Kelly, Clare O’Rourke and Katie Strachan who join the Age Development Squad; and Natasha Ramsden who joins the Emerging Talent Squad.

Go Abbotsleigh!!

Abbotsleigh featured in North Shore Times

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Following team Abbotsleigh’s success at Age Nationals, our local newspaper has featured two of our medal winners in their sports section. The article is reproduced here courtesy of the North Shore Times.

SMNE Winter Champs success

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Hi Team ABB,

A huge congratulations to Team ABB who competed at the Swimming Metro North East Championships this weekend, you all represented our team so proudly! The point scores are out and we only narrowly came 4th to Knox Pymble and came 1st in division 2 by a huge margin! So a huge congratulations. The final point scores were:

1. Carlile 4199
2. Lane Cove 2719
3. Knox Pymble 2356
4. Abbotsleigh 2248
5. Willoughby 1045
6. Ravo 914

Full results here.

Here is a short wrap up from each of the coaches:

Leanne ‘I’m going on holidays for 2 weeks’ Speechley

Gold squad were epic with their self-sufficiency in warm ups, cool downs and ownership of hydration and food intake. The racing from Gold squad was sensational as all swimmers stuck to race plans, were brave in trying new race strategies and sensational in becoming very process driven. As always it’s not all perfect and in many cases lack of fitness and lack of skills in regards to turning and diving need attention. The highlights of the meet for me included having all 3 competitive coaches pool side, the cheering from young to old and old to young, the happiness for each other when someone swam well and the delightful smiles all round on return from the pool. There were many PB’s and this should give all swimmers confidence as starting a season in front of where they left off the last short course season is extremely comforting. I don’t often give swimmer of the meet as its usually too hard – however I can’t go past mentioning Shaun on his excellent race plan execution, Lachi on his gutsy program of 1000 races and Rani on her “happy place” and underwater demon style racing that paid off immensely.
Lastly and certainly not least – thank you to the parents that helped make the meet one of my favourite run meets, to the parents in the stands, to Chris for the coaching leading into the meet and to Raf and Brandon for being such legendary and fun coaches on the day.

Don Rafael

I am extremely happy with the way Abbotsleigh team swam over the weekend! I mention the overall results but more importantly the bonding team experience.
I am impressed the way swimmers are connected to each other. I saw Mat helping Shaun with his warm up. Bailey helping Cameron with her turns & finishes on her warm up. For me THIS is team work and I cannot describe how happy I am to be part of it.
The new White squad had a fair go in every event. Really well done to Adriana, Tane and Baily for getting some states qualifying times! Amin, Zac and Talia for showing off all their good skills! This places themselves and their coaches In a really happy place.
Now I know why everyone call Abbotsleigh swim club as a THE team.
You guys rock!!!

And my Terrific Self

Smiles, PB’s, Laughter, Pb’s, chuckles, Pb’s……… What fantastic meet!!!!!!!!!!!! As coaches we are all so, so, so, so proud of your efforts this weekend. Our black squad were terrific in their application of race plans, showing a lot of composure for some tough races. The relays are always a huge highlight for me, seeing all the junior teams cheering on for the seniors and vice versa. A huge thank you to those swimmers who made the extra efforts in coming out for the relays, especially Cammy ‘This is weird’ Graham for filling in for the boys 12 & under relay!!!!!

Parents, thank you very much for your support and I’m sure you all know this but we have the best kiddies here at Abbotsleigh Swim Club and you should be all so proud!

Keep up the great training boys and girls, Speedo Cup in 2 weeks and please make sure you are getting your entries in for the Ginninderra meet.

Thanking you!

Brandon

Photo courtesy of Nina Beilby (note she has a $5/download special til Friday).