Bendigo East Swimming Club's plethora of junior talent will be on show at the Australia Age Championships on the Gold Coast.
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The club will send its biggest contingent of swimmers to the feature meeting, which starts on Saturday, and the club will also be represented at the Australian Open Championships which follow from April 17-20.
"It's a credit to the work and teamwork that the guys have done over the season,'' BESC head coach John Jordan said.
"To have swimmers competing at the national aged championships and the Australian titles is fantastic.
"A number of the swimmers in the aged titles had good enough times to qualify for the nationals, but with the nationals being so close to school they're not going to do both.
"At most of our major meets this season we've had the best results we've ever had. We're extremely proud and it's great to see the hard work pay off."
Azia Fong Sutton, Audrey Hogan, Cody Bird, Zarah Renolds, Telani Bibby, Angus Addlem, Steph Moran, Miller Nihill and Henry Allan will swim for Bendigo East at the Age Championships.
Cam Jordan is in career-best form leading into the open nationals.
Allan and Reynolds are looking forward to competing against the best swimmers in the nation in their age group at the Australian Age Championships.
Both swimmers will have busy schedules.
Allan, a backstroke specialist, will swim the 50m, 100m, 200m backstroke, the 50m freestyle and the 50m butterfly.
He'll represent the club in two relays and he's also been selected to swim for Victoria in the state medley and state freestyle relays.
"I'll try to do as well as I can in every event because if you focus on one event and you do bad in that event it can ruin the rest of the meet,'' Allan said.
The Year 10 student at Girton Grammar is already rated one of the best swimmers of his age in Australia.
"I've improved my speed a fair bit, we'll see how it goes,'' Allan said.
"I've achieved more than I ever imagined I could."
The opportunity to swim in open age competition in the 4x50m freestyle and 4x50m medley relay is something Allan is looking forward to.
"It's going to be a good experience for me to race against the guys I'll be competing against all the time when I turn 18,'' Allan said.
REYNOLDS RISES TO CHALLENGE
Reynolds, 14, lists the 50m backstroke as her favourite event.
She'll swim four individual events and three club relays on the Gold Coast, while she's also an emergency for the state relay.
"I've swam a number of personal best times recently and, hopefully, that continues on the Gold Coast,'' Reynolds said.
This summer alone Reynolds has reduced her 50m backstroke personal best time by three seconds to 30.7 seconds.
"At nationals last year I was devastated when I didn't swim a personal best, so this year I really wanted to train hard,'' Reynolds said.
"There's only two girls in my age group (in Australia) that have broken 30 seconds... so my goal is to make the final."
Reynolds said she loves swimming for Bendigo East.
"Everyone makes training so fun and John (Jordan) is an amazing coach."
