Bathurst Swim Club's home carnival shifts from January back to December to avoid clash

Delays in getting back to in-pool training, due to COVID-19 shutdowns, saw Swimming NSW push the Senior State Championships from the end of December to the end of January.

That threatened to greatly diminish numbers at the Bathurst carnival but a new date of December 12 should see the Manning Aquatic Centre event reach its full capacity.

"It created a bit of a clash. All of my senior guys wouldn't have been racing at the Bathurst carnival on its original date and I'm sure it would have been the same for senior members of other clubs," Stapley said.

"We get a big contingent of swimmers from Western Sydney for our carnival and I'd say it would have ruled most of them out. We looked at a few dates in early January but there were a couple of clashes with other regional carnivals so December made sense."

Stapley said the new date should allow the Bathurst event to reach its full potential.

"Hopefully we'll be open for travel at that point. I know other carnivals set for November might find that more difficult," he said.

"Swimming NSW and Swimming Australia have been really great. They've made these moves early and they want to conservatively lock these new dates in so that we don't have to move them when we get closer.

"Previously it worked really well to line up the training blocs with nationals so it creates challenges having the state champs in January, but it's not huge impact, especially considering that we only just got back into the water."

The first Mountains and Plains Swimming carnival of the season will take place at Cowra on November 20 and 21.

Forbes (November 27-28) and Parkes (December 4-5) will also take place before Bathurst.

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