The Junior Metropolitan Championships was the final event in the Brisbane Premiership and with the Redlands Club on top of the 1st division table by 1 point we needed a strong performance by our juniors. They put in a great effort but in the end a couple of bigger clubs finished ahead of us leaving us in 3rd place for the season. This is the best finish in 5 years by the club.
Some of the stand-out performances were Sophie Edwards (8) with a gold, bronze and 2 top ten finishes in her 4 events. Connor Wallace (11) 2 top ten finishes in his 3 events with 2 massive PB’s and Oliver Collins (12) making 4 finals and swimming PB’s in all his 6 events.
This year the club had 7 swimmers qualify in 17 individual events for the Age National Championships held in Adelaide over the Easter holidays. Our 3 girls Jody-Joy Davie, Jessica Black and Bridie Eskdale all carried injuries into the event and all still performed close to their best times. Our 4 boys Nick Garozzo, Samuel Speedie, Ben Garozzo and Kai Watson swam personal best times in all their events. Ben finished 9th in the 800m free and Kai finished 7th in the 800m free and 10th in the 400m free. With the Nationals being held in Brisbane in 2017 the club is looking to improve this year’s performance in front of a home crowd.
During the season the club held 12 club nights where we had up to 70 swimmers on average competing. These are an important part of the social side for the swimmers and families as well as preparing the swimmers for competitions down the track.
The final event for the season was the Club Championships and presentation evening. This year we had 71 swimmers compete in what was an afternoon of exciting and competitive swimming. Following the championships we had a BBQ and then presented 62 trophies ranging from the President’s trophy to age champions. Some of the major awards were;
Best Performed Senior Girl Kristen Wallace/Jody-Joy Davie
Best performed Senior Boy Kai Watson
Best performed Junior Girl Ciara Stewart
Best performed Junior Boy Callum Brennan
Congratulations to Russell Booysen, Elizabeth Claydon and Aliesha Sneesby who have all been selected to represent Australia at the Down Syndrome World Swimming Championships being held in Italy later this year.
For any information about our club please contact Cathy Roberts by email redlandsswimming@gmail.com.
Andrew Speedie
Race Secretary
redlandsswimracing@gmail.com
www.redlands.swimming.org.au