Swimming: Tamworth City swimmers perform well at State Open Championships

Five Sharks recently competed at the State Open Championships, where they acquitted themselves well against not only the best swimmers in the state, but some of the country's best.

Connor Roberts qualified for the A final in the men's 200m individual medley and men's 100m breaststroke B final, while Alex Hayes swam in the B final of the women's 200m breaststroke.

Amelia Simm, 13, meanwhile clocked personal best times for both the 100m and 200m breaststroke.

She and Hayes had a busy couple of days, also teaming up with Clementine Monet and Grace Milgate in the 4x100 medley relay, and 4x200m freestyle relay.

The championships were for Roberts, Hayes and Simm supposed to be a warm-up for the national championships due to be held later this month. But they were cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis - the announcement coming during the state championships.

The Olympic and Paralympic trials set down for June have also since been cancelled.

In what was set to be a first for the club for some time, Roberts had qualified to compete at the trials.

Sharks coach Nicholas Monet said it was a great achievement.

From his understanding he is the first swimmer from the club to have qualified to compete at the trials since the 1960s or 70s.

Hayes was only 0.6 of a second off also qualifying in the 200m breaststroke.

Monet said she was disappointed to miss out by only that much but couldn't but applaud her effort to, as a 14-year-old, come that close.

He said the championships was good exposure and a good learning experience for all of the swimmers, "racing in a very competitive environment" and in some cases alongside swimmers they idolise.

It was like Disneyland, he said, with Olympians pretty much everywhere you turned.

They got to talk to some of them and in some cases race against them.

Roberts found himself swimming next to former 200m men's breaststroke world record holder Matt Wilson while Hayes had Tessa Wallace in one of her heats and Jessica Hanson in another. Not to mention the relay girls, who lined up against the Campbell sisters (Cate and Bronte) in the medley relay.

"For them it was a fantastic experience," Monet said.

He said the great performance from all of the swimmers at the championships topped off what has been a really good season.

One of the highlights has been the success of the relay teams with the girls creating some history for the club in Sydney.

"Relays are a big goal for the club, to have as many relays as we can in different levels of competition," he said.

"It was good to do that."

Now it's about restarting and resetting, the goal now turning to preparing for next season, and for the top swimmer next year's nationals.

With the pool out of action now, the swimmers are having a few weeks off. They will then start on some dryland work before hopefully being able to get back in the water.

Monet expects that might not be until maybe July.