THE Bathurst Swim Club will play host to more than 300 swimmers this weekend as the Bathurst Aquatic Centre welcomes competitors for the NSW Country Regional Championships.
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The meet is one of three of its kind, with the other two being staged in Moree and Wagga Wagga, and it is the first time Bathurst has been one of the hosts.
Beginning at 10am tomorrow, the program is virtually non-stop.
Swimmers of all ages will be in action across just about every discipline and distance imaginable, and BSC president Jim Geyer can’t wait.
“In total there are 314 swimmers entered. They will be competing from 50 different clubs across the two days,” he said.
“We have the youngsters in action right through to the open age categories, so there is something for everyone there.
“We are pretty pleased with the local representation, too, with 36 swimmers from the club competing across 207 different events, so we have someone in the majority of the 270 total events.”
No race is as closely linked with the sport in Australia as the 1500 metres freestyle, but it is a rarity at non-state title competitions.
Not this weekend, though.
“We are holding a 1500 metre race. It isn’t something that has picked up a lot of interest in the past when we’ve done it because obviously it’s such a tough race, but we held one at our own club carnival in December and we also had one in June at the Mountains and Plains Winter Carnival,” Geyer said.
“That time we had eight competitors to fill the eight lanes, so that was a pretty good result.”
Two Swimming NSW board members – president Graham Towle and director David Goff – will be in attendance as well as around 10 technical officials.
The Bathurst club has been busy over the past seven months, having staged the Mountains and Plains meet, which gained plenty of attention, as well as its own annual championships last month.
Geyer is loving it, even if it means a bit of extra work for himself and the rest of the committee.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to put on the country titles to my knowledge,” he said.
“We’ve had the summer and winter carnivals and had a lot of people take part in those and it has meant that we’ve been very busy, but it is great to have a bit of a spotlight on the sport in this area and to have quality competition in our own town.”
Racing is expected to wrap up on Sunday at around 5pm.
