Adrian Filipic
Junior swimmers from the Ocean Shores Aquatic club have achieved great results in the state finals for primary, high and Catholic schools held in Sydney earlier in April.
The swimmers all went down to Sydney ready and with good intentions with some of our younger ones enjoying the experience for the first time!
There were some amazing results achieved and all 17 swimmers, when reflecting on their season, should be very happy and proud.
Billy Thompson, Tiggi Groves, Jack Safranek, Skye Pockley, Charlotte Archibald, Meg Porter, Raife McKenzie and Mollie Cheek all swam personal best times.
Milos Safranek, Jonah Caoyonan and Jarra Mills also produced personal best times to help secure their Byron Bay Public School freestyle relay team a berth in the finals.
Tom Cheek was challenged with his heavy six-event schedule that included the honour of carrying the Far North Coast flag in the opening ceremony.
He swam in the open boys’ 6x50m freestyle relay that finished sixth in the final. He swam courageously in the 50m butterfly and 100m freestyle, as did Eve Porter in her freestyle events.
Montanah Archibald swam a fast 50m butterfly and Jake Gilltrap-Good a hard 50m breast-stroke.
Sashi Wills swam strongly and so close to her bests in most of her six events. She achieved two 12ths, a 13th and a 14th placing.
Mollie Cheek swam an incredible 28.66 in her 50m freestyle final, ranking her 7th, and then finished 11th in the 100m butterfly, just missing the final for the second year in a row.
Raife McKenzie pulled off mission impossible: six events for five personal best times, including improvements of seven and ten seconds.
This effort granted Raife access to finals in the 100m breaststroke and in the 100m butterfly, where he finished fifth and ninth overall.
