Bathurst Swim Club hosts first qualifying meeting of the season

A number of personal bests (PBs), nationals, state and country times were achieved, with swimmers from the likes of Cowra, Dubbo and Lithgow, alongside the local contingent, all descending on Bathurst.

While club swimmers have competed in meetings at various locations across the Central West in recent weeks, it was their first major swim at Bathurst for the season.

Bathurst Swim Club head coach Josh Stapley was impressed with how his local swimmers performed at the meeting.

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"I was really impressed with the number our swimmers that were hitting good times, especially as it's still early on in the season, only nine weeks or so back from lockdown," he said.

"We're hitting the sort of numbers we'd normally hit in February, which is getting close to the end of the long course season.

"We PB'd in about 211 races, about one in ever two races we had a PB. I think we had a medal in about one in every two races, which is awesome.

"The numbers we saw at Bathurst was what you'd normally see in at the Mountains and Plains Championship."

Swimmers that excelled at the meeting include Caleb Cashman and Alex Evans, as well as Bryce Bollinger, who was backing up on the Sunday after winning eight medals in the NSW State Multi-Class Championships on Saturday.

"We had Caleb Cashman and Alex Evans get their second Nationals time," Stapley explained.

"We had quite a lot that collected state and country qualifying times over the course of the weekend, so to tick them off so early in the season is great from them. They can now turn their focus to the championships next year.

"A special mention to Bryce Bollinger too. He collected four goals, three silvers and one bronze at the NSW State Multi-Class Championships on Saturday.

"It was a great result for him to knock that over and then come and back it up on Sunday for our club carnival."

Heading into the new year, country regional meetings will be held at Griffith, Gunnedah and Singleton on January 8-9, before the NSW Senior State Age Championships at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre on January 20-25.

For more on the local club, visit @BathurstSwimClub on Facebook.

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