Number of personal best times for Albany Swim Club members at annual short-course carnival

Albany Swim Club hosted its annual short-course carnival at the weekend, with more than 60 competitors hitting the water on Sunday in a rebranded COVID Catastrophe Country Carnival. While COVID-19 restrictions were lifted on Saturday morning, no Perth or Peel Swim Clubs made the trip down as they were unable to attend recreation venues, leading to the event’s tongue-in-cheek new name. The carnival was cancelled last year because of COVID-19 restrictions. Albany had 29 athletes hit the water at Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre with some stand-out results, while other swim clubs to attend came from Collie, Australind, Bunbury, Esperance and Mt Barker. Sixty four competitors took part in a condensed program of several heats in a total of 15 events. Rising star Coco Smargiassi was named Senior Swimmer of the Meet after competing in 13 individual events. Albany had 10 age group champions crowned at the end of the competition. Annie Newman, 8, Jack Gledson, 8, Tessa Steer, 11, Jason Wenbourne, 11, Summer Lawson, 12, Thomas Bavcevich, 12, Smargiassi, 14, Itsuki Tomita, 14, Megan Pascoe, 15, and Luke Wallinger, 17, were named champions of their age group. Local swimmers also recorded some personal best times, including Ashton Henrickson, Lawson, Lillian Molenda and Tariq Malpass. Henrickson swam the 13-year-old 50m freestyle in under 30 seconds for the first time and also took 22.60 seconds off his 200m freestyle entry time. Summer Lawson swam superbly in the 200m freestyle taking 25.83 seconds off her personal best, while Molenda cut 20.89 seconds off her 50m butterfly time in the 11-year-old age group. Tariq Malpass had a great day in the 14-year-old age group with personal best times in all nine of his individual events. Annie Newman, 8, improved her 50m freestyle by 17.48 seconds, Max Bowyer shaved 16.80 seconds off his 100m breaststroke time in the nine-year-old division while Seth Lawson, 11, beat his 100m freestyle time by 13.26 seconds. Mt Barker Barracudas Swim Club swimmer Kaleb Glas was named the multi-class swimmer of the meet. Albany Swim Club Coach Nola Osborne said it was a well run event despite the Perth and Peel being unable to attend. “It’s great to have such high quality competition in Albany for our local swimmers to race against,” she said. “Athletes from the ASC achieved several new personal best times plus some new state qualifying times — which was an awesome result.”