Candace Torkington with her Bronze medal from Brisbane Open Water Championships.
The open water swimming championships have become more popular with the kids over the last couple of years. The Redlands club had 15 swimmers compete at the Brisbane Championships with ten of our swimmers finishing in the top 10. Three swimmers won the following medals: Gold medallist and Brisbane champion 16yrs girls 5km Kristen Wallace; Gold medallist and Brisbane champion 11yrs boys 2.5km Kai Watson; and, Bronze medallist 13yrs girls 2.5km Candace Torkington. This small team of swimmers had the Redlands club finish 4th overall which is a fantastic effort considering the teams ahead of them had 30 plus swimmers competing.
Unfortunately, the flu went through the squad prior to the State championships and only six swimmers were able to compete with four of them finishing top 10 in their respective age groups. Congratulations to Veronica Pangrazio, Kristen Wallace, Bridget Smith and Emily Jamieson who have all qualified to compete at the National Open Water championships in February 2015.
By the time this goes to print our swimmers will have competed in the Queensland State Championships held over a week in mid December. This year we have 20 swimmers who have qualified to compete in the individual events and we have entered 28 relay teams into the club relay championships.
The Redlands club invited three other local clubs, Ormiston, Sheldon & Bayside Flyers to compete in the 2014 Bayside Swim Club challenge on 30 November. Hopefully with a successful meet we will be able to expand on the concept next year.
[box type=”bio”] For any information on the Redlands Swim Club please contact the secretary on hellotorky@gmail.com. [/box]