Our team has returned home from Singapore with great results and a stack of medals, topping the medal tally after taking on the world at the Singapore National Championships from the 20th – 23rd June.
We collected an impressive 18 medals, including 11 Gold, 4 Silver and 3 Bronze against strong competition at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.
It was the first time Swimming Victoria has sent a team overseas to represent Victoria at an international meet and coach, Wayne Lawes could not have been happier with how they performed. “The competition forced the swimmers to swim fast heats to ensure they were there in the finals. By the end of the week the whole group really came together and represented the Big V proudly” said Lawes.
Nunawading’s Matthew Temple and Bowen Gough provided one of the highlights of the meet when they went 2ndand 3rd respectively behind Singapore’s own Olympic Gold medallist, Joseph Schooling in the Men’s 100m Butterfly. It was a gutsy effort by Temple who lead for most of the race before being overtaken by the Olympic champion in the last 10 metres.
It seemed like everything Sophie Caldwell (Nunawading) touched turned to gold, with victories in almost all her events, adding 4 Gold medals to our tally. Her standout performance was in the Women’s 200m Backstroke where she swam a personal best time of 2:16.91 to hit the wall first.
Firbank’s Samuel Williamson continued his strong form this year taking home the double in the Men’s 100m and 200m Breaststroke events. He also claimed Silver in the Men’s 50m Breaststroke, finishing just behind Indian, Sandeep Sejwal, who broke the Championship record.
We’d like to acknowledge asctaVIC and Swimming NSW who also contributed to the tour. 5 swimmers from NSW competed at the meet, enabling us to share resources and work together to provide this opportunity for the swimmers.
We’d also like to thank our coaches Wayne Lawes and Jason Cooper and our team managers Josh Busch and Ashlea Keramidopoulos for guiding and supporting the swimmers.
There’s no doubt that our young team will take home a lot more than medals from their time in Singapore. We hope that this opportunity has given them valuable travel and race experience as they continue along the pathway to senior team selection.
For full results from the 2018 Singapore National Championships, click here.
