Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr
CANBERRA, Australia, September 24. THE annual State Teams Age Short Course Championships are returning to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra this Friday September 26 to Sunday September 28 with close to 200 of the best junior swimmers from across Australia coming together to compete.
The swimmers, aged between 14 and 17 for boys and 13 and 16 for girls, will race to win points for their respective state or territory as they battle for bragging rights in the team based competition.
Queensland are the reigning champions, having won the State Teams Title five years in a row and with a number of rising stars on their side they will no doubt be looking for title number six this weekend.
Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championship representative Alanna Bowles will bolster the Queensland team alongside a number of international junior representatives including gold and silver medallist from Junior Pan Pacs Shayna Jack and bronze medallist from the Youth Olympic Games Grayson Bell.
At just 16-years-of-age Bowles made her senior team debut this year finishing fourth in the 800m freestyle final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and narrowly missing the women’s 200m butterfly final in ninth place.
Bowles will have a busy schedule in Canberra, taking on the 200, 400 and 800m freestyle, the 200 and 400m individual medley and the 200m butterfly.
The sixth title won’t come easily and the ‘sunshine state’ will face tough competition from New South Wales and Victoria, who both got close to spoiling Queensland’s clean sweep in 2013 with less than 200 points separating the top three teams last year.
Don’t discount South Australia, with talented teenagers Ella Bond and Kyle Chalmers fresh from the Youth Olympic Games on their side or Western Australia with Junior Pan Pacs open water silver medallist Grace Hull and bronze medallist from the 4x100m medley relay Damian Fyfe flying the flag for WA.
Swimming Australia Performance Pathway Manager Jamie Salter said with another busy year ahead the event was a great opportunity for young swimmers to focus on winning points for their State rather than chasing times.
“The State Teams Age Short Course Championships is a curtain raiser to the to the domestic racing season, it’s a fantastic chance for Australia’s emerging junior swimmers to practice their race skills in a team environment before the focus shifts to the Australian Age Nationals and then potentially the World Juniors or the Commonwealth Youth Games next year,” Salter said.
With four sessions across this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the weekend is set to showcase some of Australia’s best young swimmers as they battle for state supremacy.
The first session will commence at 4:30pm on Friday September 26 and continue on Saturday at 9:30am.
For full information and session times visit http://www.swimming.org.au/article.php?group_id=7615
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