Oooooooo boy!!! Yes, it’s that time of year again—except this time it’s all things short course!!

The Yeronga Yodellers announced their campaign of 109 swims over 3 days with a new brewing bromance!! In their first ever state championships Leon Reynolds and Jake MacDonald kicked us off with 2 PBs in the 100 IM—the first of their 8 races each!! On the flip side, Archie is missing his other half and going solo this weekend. He kicked off his campaign with a solid swim in the 100 IM, finishing 11th.

50 fly time and our brudding bromance smashed it out of the park with another 2 PBs and Jake finishing 5th in Queensland! The silent assassin (Alex Whitcombe) hit the water for his first event, smashed his PB and scored a state qualifying time for December!! Butterfly queen Lizzie Wilson entered the arena as our first female swimmer and continued our run of PBs as Maggie also ticked off her first event, PB, AND state qualifying time. Archie clutched up to deliver a PB while Luka smashed through the 30 second barrier for a state qualifying time and another PB. Ebony, Vicki, Layla, and Jess all just snuck over their PBs by .2–great effort, girls! Emma dipped her toe back into the competitive environment; awesome to see her racing again. The big boys were up next with Jake (Senior) leading the charge with a nice PB, and Henry joining in on the fun with a SQT and a PB. In came Cameron, fresh from school in his school uniform, diving in and not breathing for 35m—including the turn!! PB ✅SQT✅ Still huffing and puffing, “Thanks guys, I gotta get back to school,” he said, and ran back out the door! Thanks for coming, Cam. To round out this event we had Neve, who broke the 30 second barrier convincingly and Macca—who continues to have the best SC season of his 23 year career—both smashing PBs. Huge shout out to Svet, Felipe,and the State Target athletes who managed a 100% PB rate in this event!!

Enter “the bandit” (Lachlan Bandidt) and the beginning of the 100 Backs. Lachie showed composure through a great race with some big technical improvements, narrowly missing his PB. YPSC Bromance 2.0 were at it for their 3rd event of the morning!! After some karate chop, head back focus, both boys swam just over their PBs but made some great technical changes. The highlight, though, was Maggie, who scored the biggest PB of the morning, taking off 3 seconds and coming 12th in QLD— great work, Mags! Vi🔑 (Vicky) continued her push towards Comm Games with a great 100 Back hit out, swimming right on her PB.

Never to be outdone by his brother, Archie (lone ranger) Reynolds had his 3rd event of the morning, a gruelling 200 back. In a valiant effort, he swam just over his PB but managed to go 8 for 8 10m+ underwaters—an epic achievement in itself! 13th in QLD ain’t too bad, either. To round out the first session, Maggelicious decided 100 back wasn’t enough; she needed to do a 200 as well, smashing another PB by 3 seconds! Epic first session.

Trailing 30 minutes behind, the second session started with the splash and dash! Macca stepped up, nailing good processes and just missing his PB by .03. But never fear, Bromance 2.0, the Bandit, AND Silent Assassin had us covered with another 4 PBs, keeping Svet and Felipe’s perfect 50 record alive. Our 12 year girls entered next, with Grace, Maggie, and Mia all PBing in fine style with Sophie and Lizzie narrowly missing theirs by less than a second. The Lone Ranger continued on without his (soul)mate and demolished the 26 second barrier with a 25.7; Luka continued his impressive short course season, clocking another 27. Jake saw Archie’s 25 and freaked out, so clocked a solid 24 point to remain age group sprint king. Finishing out the boys was Toby and while swimming within a second of his newfound 25 point PB his own race analysis of where he missed it was perhaps the highlight. Finally in this event were our 14 and over girls, led by none other than our smiling Neve Longmire. Taking the Macca approach of “you’re never too old to improve” she smashed her PB, now only 0.1 away from going 26!! Vickieey continued our trend of swimming within half a second of PB as did Eliana, Emma, Avocado, and Layla. Jess broke the 29 barrier for a nice PB but the highlight has to be Isla Whitcombe. After breaking the 30 second barrier the other week by not breathing, she decided to prove me wrong and this week went another PB—almost clocking a 28–by breathing non-stop! Most impressive, though, was to see how fast her arms have started moving after only working on it for two weeks—epic!

With the splash and dash done, and the sun starting to set, our 100 brst girls had been waiting patiently. Grace started strong but after breathing to the heavens just narrowly missed setting a new PB. Mia decided that breathing towards the bottom was the way to go and clocked an impressive 2 second PB to end her day with a nice win. Emma, still fresh off the plane from Europe, took it out hard to see where we’re at after all those croissants. The front end was great and highlighted how much speed she’s still got! Macca, confused at a distance longer than 50m, touched the wall in 1st at the 50m mark and then remembered he had 50 to go! Good work, Macca, stepping out of your comfort zone!

And by this point, night had fallen! But that wasn’t going to persuade me to let our 200 fly girls off the hook! Layla and Lizzie absolutely love this event and I wouldn’t want them to miss out on another opportunity to swim such an easy race!! Layla managed to luck out and swim the whole race without her goggles, but wouldn’t you know it, she kept our trend of being within .5 of her PB—great race, showing her mettle. Lizzie stuck it out all day long; she went out quick— maybe a little bit too much—but managed to pull off a great swim nonetheless.

Quick note to say good luck to Lola and Lewis who are racing at Pool Rescue Nationals this weekend!

Great first day, can’t wait to see what we’ve got in store for day 2

YP Coaching Team