Swimming: Gunnedah hosts only home meet of 2022/23 summer season

Scheduled to take place last weekend, the Gunnedah long course carnival was under threat from the ceaseless rain and flooding around the region.

"We were debating whether to cancel the carnival on Friday," Smith said.

"But we decided to push through, and we were pretty grateful for the people who travelled from other towns to make it. I think some of them had to travel the long way around to bypass flood waters."

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Though the event was condensed from two days to one, with a handful of attendees eventually unable to make it, the competition still went ahead with roughly 135 swimmers and saw a spate of personal bests and broken pool records.

Two swimmers stood out to Gunnedah Swimming coach, John Hickey, from the roughly 40-strong squad of locals at the meet.

"Dana Campbell qualified for State Championships, she swum 30.19 for 50 metre freestyle, and 30.50 was the qualifying time," Hickey said.

"Dana is an exceptional sprinter, and she's very talented and swum an excellent race there.

"The other is a young 10-year-old by the name of Josh Spinks. Josh broke the most pool records of anyone in our club, I think he broke upwards of five on the weekend in different races."

Many of the records Spinks broke were previously held by Jacob Smith, who Hickey regards as "our number one swimmer".

Given the short-notice changes made to the meet, it would not have been a success, Smith said, if not for the hard work of the club committee and the Gunnedah Shire Council.

"It all comes on the back of hard work and commitment from the committee," he said.

"They've spent many hours of many nights trying to organise these events ... and the help of the parents and the rest of the club to pull the meet off.

"The Gunnedah Shire Council and the pool staff are always very accommodating when it comes to hosting these carnivals."

Last weekend's was the only major meet Gunnedah Swimming will host this summer season.

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