Local swimmers flocking to Short Course Country Championships

Due to COVID-19, the Country Championships were cancelled in 2020 and 2021.

This year, Swimming NSW has finally gotten the go-ahead to hold the event at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

"Looking forward to watching our kids race!" Swimming Gunnedah head coach, John Hickey, told the Leader in a text message.

Gunnedah will send nine swimmers to the championships, while the Tamworth City Swimming Club will send eight, and the Kootingal-Moonbi Swimming Club has six entries.

Nicolas Monet, who coaches the Tamworth City swimmers, said his cohort is "very excited" to get back in the SOPAC pool and try their best with no expectations of medals.

"For us at the end of the term, it's always good to have a competition to see if the training went well and what we need to work on," he said.

"It's more like this than just to get some medals, it's an evaluation of each swimmer."

The preparation has not been perfect for each club, however. Hickey said "cold and flu has slowed us up a bit", but results from a recent carnival left him hopeful.

"We continued our progress following the regional carnival at Armidale, where we broke a lot of records!" he said.

"It'll be good to test our progress against other regions this weekend."

KMSC spokesperson, AliceAnne McDougall, said their swimmers will compete in "a range of events", with a girls' relay team entered as well.

"The swimmers have been training well and are excited to be heading to Sydney to swim at SOPAC," she said in an email.

"The team members have their new representative shirts on which they have earnt by qualifying and attending the country championship event."

The Country Championships will begin this Friday and run through to Sunday.

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