Swimming Wrap Up 2021

Mr David Thomas

Director of Swimming

Abig performance on the day saw the boys from TSS claim a wonderful third place at the 2021 GPS Swimming Championships. Unfancied and ranked lower going into the competition, the team revelled in the underdog title and performed well above predicted levels for a brilliant finish to get back on the podium.

Captain Jack Coffey, calmly led by example all season and set the tone on race day claiming a win in the Opens 200 Medley. The team improved their ranking in over 75% of swims on the day. This was due to a fantastic season of training and following in the example of Captain Jack – humble, hard-working and unrelenting.

Special mention to winners on the day – Jack Coffey (Opens 200m Medley); Flynn McGregor (Opens 100m Breaststroke); Hudson Sheehan (U13s 50m and 100m Freestyle) and to Year 9 Matthew Lowe tackling the All Age 400m Freestyle with calm and confidence – securing fourth place.

Special thank you to the staff and coaches who always think of the boys first – Mr Nesbit, Mr Marshall, Mr du Feu, Ms Cole, Mr Eardley, Mrs Redler, Mr Stalling and Mr Wilkins.

Special thank you also to Australian Dolphin and former GPS Winner Grayson Bell (WAL15) who spoke very candidly about his GPS experiences and over coming nerves. He helped instill a sense of calm and confidence in the team.

Massive congratulations to the Years 5 to 7 team on their seventh place finish. In 2020 they finished 77 points behind sixth place, in 2021 we were only 4.5 points behind sixth place. This is a monster improvement – amazing job boys. A historic week was had recently for TSS Aquatic in Adelaide at Olympic trials. Five TSS Aquatic swimmers qualified to represent Australia at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Tokyo Bound

David Morgan 200m Butterfly

Cameron McEvoy 100m Freestyle

Kiah Melverton 1500m Freestyle

Maddy Gough 1500m Freestyle (New Australian record)

In the small hours Monday morning Kai Edwards became the fifth swimmer from the TSS Aquatic Program to qualify for the Olympics. Finishing in fifth place in a 10km Open Water Qualifier Swim in Portugal, Kai has secured his spot in the race in Tokyo.

Kai has trained at TSS for over 10 years and is a fantastic character, great mentor and role model for the boys.

Coach Chris Nesbit has also been selected on the Team for Tokyo – taking our contingent to six!