By David Nagel
Over the Christmas period, the Star News’ sports team will be re-sharing some of the most popular stories from over the course of 2023.
Thank you for supporting our newspapers over the course of the year. We hope you enjoy the selection and have a wonderful holiday period, however you choose to celebrate.
Five members of the Cardinia Piranhas Swimming Club took inspiration from an Olympic champion to walk away with 17 medals from the Australian Country Swimming Championships held in Darwin recently.
Emma Grave, Heath Grave, Raymond Grave, Isabelle Mills and Logan McEwan represented the Piranhas; based at Cardina Life in Pakenham and a not-for-profit community-based swimming Club.
Each swimmer had to meet qualifying times set by Swimming Northern Territory and Swimming Australia to take part in the event.
The meet attracted 300 swimmers from across Australia including gold medal winning Olympian, world record holder and Commonwealth Games champion Chelsea Hodges.
Hodges swam the breaststroke leg for the Australian 4×100 medley relay team, joining forces with Kaylee McKeown (Backstroke) and all-time greats Emma McKeon (Butterfly) and Cate Campbell (Freestyle) to claim gold in Tokyo in August 2021.
She is also a current world record holder in short-course events, winning the 4×50 medley relay with Mollie O’Callaghan (Backstroke), McKeon (Butterfly) and Madison Wilson (Freestyle) in a time of 1:42.35 in Melbourne in 2022.
Hodges also ran a clinic for junior swimmers before the meet commenced, providing them with an insight on her swimming journey and what it means to be an elite athlete.
Despite the relatively small size of the Cardinia Piranhas Swim Club, its swimmers performed remarkably well bringing home and incredible haul of medals, with all five reaching finals in their events.
Across the meet, the five Piranhas claimed seven gold, six silver and four bronze medals, while also achieving 66 personal-best times and 34 Victorian state times.
Individual highlights include:
RAYMOND GRAVE (11YRS)
Gold: 50 and 100 Backstroke, 50 Butterfly
Silver: 50 and 100 Freestyle
Bronze: 100 Breaststroke and 200 Freestyle
LOGAN MCEWEN (16YRS)
Gold: 50, 100 and 200 Breaststroke
Bronze: 200 Backstroke
EMMA GRAVE (14YRS)
Gold: 50 Breaststroke
Silver: 50 Freestyle, 200 Breaststroke, 100 Backstroke
Bronze: 100 Freestyle
HEATH GRAVE (16YRS)
Silver: 50 Breaststroke
ISABELLE MILLS (14YRS)
Finalist: 200 Freestyle, 100 Freestyle and 100 Backstroke
