2015 has been the best and most successful swimming season The Southport School has ever had! The swimming program has gone from strength to strength every year, and the jump forward this season has been our biggest improvement to date. The GPS Championship was the first major high of the season with TSS winning the premiership by a recordbreaking margin of 41 points. We also claimed more relay points than ever before, which meant more relay points than any other school. This really showed the strength and depth of the program (73 points out of a potential 100). Out of the 42 events seven swims were TSS GPS records. LIAM DU FEU
Director of Swimming
The Years 5-7 competition was also our best result ever, finishing in second place just four points behind the winners. Last year the 5-7s placed second by over 100 points!
Well done to the GPS Captain Max Statham who kicked off the Years 8-12 competition in style with an impressive 400m freestyle win as well as racing the last event of the day, the winning 6x50m freestyle relay. Well done also to the GPS Junior Captain Jake Kersten. Jake had an outstanding day, leading by example, winning more points than any other member of the team! Jake claimed first place in the 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and second in the 200m freestyle. Jake was also part of the GPS record breaking 4 x 50m medley relay, leading the relay in a school and club record for the 50m backstroke! Thank you to Stephen Eardley, Bruce Curtis, Brad Carter and Sam Lobascher for their hard work throughout the season.
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THE SOUTHPORT SCHOOL SOUTHPORTONIAN 2015
TSS Aquatics success has also been outstanding. David Morgan became the school’s first-ever Australian Swimming Dolphin (who trains permanently at TSS). He competed at this year’s World Swimming Championships in Kazan and swam superbly claiming a silver medal in the 4x100m medley relay. The team finished just 0.15 seconds behind the United States. Another outstanding result at the Worlds came from TSS Aquatic swimmer Jess Walker. She finished fifth in the 5km Open Water competition. Chris WalkerHebborn was one of two TSS Old Boys competing in Kazan who were both part of the highly successful Offshore Centre. Chris claimed gold as part of the world record-breaking 4 x 100m mixed medley relay team for Great Britain! Also competing at the World Championships was New Zealand swimmer Emma Robinson. TSS schoolboys Dom Richardson and Grayson Bell qualified for the Junior World Championships in Singapore as well as TSS Old Boy Josh Parrish and current TSS High Performance Coach Chris Nesbit. All three boys won National Championships at the age group competition in April. TSS Aquatic won the gold medal table to the first time ever at this year’s Australian National Age Championships. Included in the results was our first-ever Australian Age Group National Record in the 4 x 200m boys freestyle relay. The team was made up by TSS schoolboys past and present – Jake Kersten, Dom Richardson, Max Statham and Josh Parrish. TSS Aquatic also retained the Queensland State Championship trophy (December 2014) after winning the competition for the first time ever in 2013. TSS Swimming is most definitely on the map. The World Championship Trials showed the TSS logo a total of 50 times in eight days of televised coverage on HD One – the school hoodies and swimming caps standing out so well on TV. The TSS flag is flying very high at the pool!
