By JARROD POTTER
A SELECT group of Casey TigerSharks Swimming Club members joined the top tier of Australian swimmers, bringing back individual medals from the National Age Swimming Championships.
Casey’s champions – Mitch Pratt, Tyrone Dobrunz, Bowen Gough and Nick Galileos – brought back from Adelaide four national championships and a pair of runner-up awards in a fantastic week for the club.
Pratt, 17 from Cranbourne, picked up a pair of victories – the 200 metres backstroke and 200m butterfly – with a completely unexpected win in his non-preferred backstroke.
“Cause I knew I wasn’t fully prepared for it – I knew if I could save my legs for the last 50, I could really nail the legs and be able to hold on,” Pratt said.
“I did that and was able to hold on, was so proud of myself, but it hurt so much though.”
Pratt also won a silver medal in the 100m butterfly.
Dobrunz, 18 from Tynong, bowed out of the Age Championships with a silver in the 200m breaststroke – and was thrilled to finish his time in the junior ranks with a great personal best and a second placing.
“It’s my favourite race at my last national age, so it meant a bit more to me,” Dobrunz said.
“Was a big PB went 2.17.8 – PB before that was 2.20, so this was a nice time and it was a great way to go out.”
A recent addition to Casey TigerSharks, Bowen Gough, 14, from Bass, was thrilled to take the championship in 200m backstroke – timing his race perfectly to fly past the competition to touch in 2.08.7 – a three second personal best.
In the 200, I was sixth at the 50, fourth at the 100, second at the 150 mark and first by the end,” Gough said.
“I haven’t really raced like that before, but it was good to come over the top.
“It’s pretty good – I’m really happy with it.”
Last year (before joining the TigerSharks), I came 29th in the 200 back, so I’ve jumped a fair few places.”
Leaving his win for his final event, Nick Galileos touched in at 4.52.14 in the boys 12-13 400m individual medley, smashing his personal best in the event as he shaved 10 seconds off his best time across the championships.
“It was on the last day of the meet, the last individual event – I was overall pretty happy with it as I came in ranked second, so to come out on top is pretty good,” Galileos said.
TigerSharks Ben Hiddlestone said the success of the National Age team this year was a marked improvement on previous performances at the championships.
“Really good results all around,” Hiddlestone said.
“The year before, we finished 48th overall – was an abysmal year and we took 13-14 guys.
“This year, we went back to a small high performance group, which works really well for us.
“We came 18th overall and four of those guys came back with individual medals, so it was a good representation of what kind of club we are.”
Hiddlestone especially wanted to thank Casey TigerSharks head assistant coach Julie Jansz for taking the National Age team to Adelaide and coaching them excellently across the program.
The next challenge for the older TigerSharks is heading to Adelaide next week for the National Swimming Championships, held from 26 April – 3 May.
