Strong competition at short course

Albany Swim Club have again performed strongly at the Albany Short Course Carnival, which attracted almost 250 competitors at the weekend.

Nineteen clubs took part in the 2019 edition of the carnival held over two days and Albany’s contingent reached 41 swimmers while Mt Barker Swim Club also had Dylan Glas in the pool.

Albany’s Imogen Fethers, Harriet Martin, Lila Shavian, Coco Smargiassi, Cairo Smargiassi, Dalphi Steer, Kai Sepkus and Creed Shepherd were all named in the top achievers of the meet.

UWA West Coast Swimming Club’s Emily Holland, 14, was named the senior swimmer of the meet and Georgiana Molloy Anglican School’s Madeline Harvey, 10, won the junior swimmer of the meet title.

In a female clean sweep Lucinda Foley from UWA West Coast was the inaugural multiclass swimmer of the meet.

UWA West Coast also won the 10-person interclub relay which was a fantastic battle as 10 teams vied for top honours.

Luke Wallinger won a gold medal for Albany in the 14-and-over 800m freestyle while a host of other locals snared medals.

Creed Shepherd, 9, won silver in the 50m breaststroke and backstroke and added a bronze in the 100m individual medley.

Coco Smargiassi won two silver medals in the 100m individual medley and the 100m breaststroke to go with a 50m butterfly bronze.

There were silver medals for Itsuki Tomita (800m freestyle), Cairo Smargiassi (100m backstroke) and Jake Shepherd (100m freestyle).

Kai Sepkus finished with two medals, one silver in the 800m freestyle and a bronze in the 100m backstroke and Tom Gawned won three silver medals and one bronze.

Liv Cook-Barron also medalled in the 800m freestyle, winning a bronze in her 14-and-over girls event.

Cairo Smargiassi, Kai Sepkus, Itsuki Tomita and Jake Shepherd were part of the Albany team to win silver in the boys 14-and-under 200m freestyle relay.

ASC head coach Marshall McAleese said numbers were nearly at capacity for the event their relatively new committee did a great job running the two days.

“Overall, it was really good to have such a high level of competition come to Albany,” he said.

“Usually we have to travel to get that level of competition.

“From my perspective a couple of outstanding ones Kai Sepkus and Harriet Martin.

“I’d imagine we had a good personal best percentage as a club and its great development for our junior swimmers, a lot of them trying their hand at competition for the first time.”