Issue 7, 2023/2024 by Graham Edwards - 17th November, 2023

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Club Captains

Congratulations to the members who were nominated for Club Captains for the season. Voting concluded last Saturday and we will announce the elected Club Captains for 2023/2024 this morning at the start of the Championship presentation.

Parramatta Inter-Club Cup

Our club competed in the Parramatta Inter-Club last Saturday afternoon at Granville Swimming Centre.

Congratulations to our team of 39 swimmers (across all ages) who took on the challenge against Parramatta City and McCredie Park. Whilst we weren’t able to retain the cup won last year, our team achieved great times and results with 62 new personal best times swum. As always, the meet was contested in great spirit and we look forward to trying to wrest the cup back from Parramatta City next year.

A big thank you to our club coaches for preparing our team for the meet and to Sylvia Chan, Danielle Vicic, Prafulla Shrestha, Margaret Edwards & Umi Shrestha, who undertook timekeeping during the meet. Your help was invaluable and greatly appreciated.

Club Uniforms

Start planning your uniform needs, with Christmas coming and the Merrylands SwimFest in February. See the Property Officer, Margaret Edwards for any questions about club uniforms and place an order online.

Lions Club Award

Don’t forget to submit nominations for club members who provide outstanding service to the club during the month. If you would like to nominate a club member submit your nomination here.

Free Membership for 8yrs & Under

We have funds available due to the previous grant received from Club Merrylands to reimburse memberships costs for swimmers aged 8yrs & Under. Eligibility criteria includes members who regularly swim in our club races. More information on eligibility criteria and how to claim reimbursement is here.

Bring a Friend

Did you know your friends can Come & Try club races for up to 4 weeks without being a member? Just get them to sign up here.

Officiating

To successfully run club races every week we need the help of a lot of people.

Timekeeping plays an important part as every swimmer depends on accurate timing for their race. We need 2 timekeepers per lane so please step forward to help on the morning. Timekeepers should report to the Chief Timekeeper (Denise Assi) before races commence so we can assign you to a lane and determine which additional lanes we need to fill.

If you are interested in learning more about officiating, or learning about some of the positions, please let Graham know as we can provide a range of information and assistance to help you achieve your accreditations.

To find more information about officiating see the Swimming NSW website here.

Championship races

Last week we held two Club Championship events, the 100 metres Backstroke and 100 metres Butterfly. Congratulations to everyone who competed in these events. The results were:

100 metres Backstroke

Open Championship results were:

100 metres Butterfly

** Matthew Vicic set a new record for the 16 Years Mens Butterfly Championship, swimming a time of 1:08.71, breaking the time of 1:12.86 set by Robert Griffey in 2001.

Open Championship results were:

Good luck to all of our swimmers competing in the 400 metre Freestyle Championship event to be held this morning.

Swimming No. 1 sport in Australia

Swimming has topped the Australian Sport’s Commission’s latest national AusPlay data to be the number one participation sport in the country.

Nearly six million Australians participate in swimming – be it learn to swim, recreational lap swimming, squad training, ocean swimming or competition.

The 2022-23 report, released at the end of October 2023, also found that swimming is the most popular sport for children with nearly two million (1,918,000) participants.

Other key findings include:

• Swimming participation has increased 33% (1.45 million) since 2017-18.
• In all – 3.95 million adults and 1.92 million children are involved in swimming.
• Adult swimming participation rates have increased to 18% in 2022-23 from 14.6% in 2017-18.
• The swimming participation rate amongst children has increased to 37.9% in 2022-23 from 30.8% in 2017-18.
• Swimming is particularly popular amongst women and girls, who represent 54.8% of total swimming participation (3.22 million).
• Females represent 56.9% of total adult swimming participation and 50.6% of total swimming participation amongst children.
• Swimming is the leading sport for people with a disability (573,000).
• Swimming is the leading sport amongst people who speak a language other than English (LOTE) at home (995,000).

Upcoming Meet Calendar

Check the website for the full list of upcoming meets, closing dates, programs and qualifying times.