Swimming: Australind Swimming Club making waves at State and national level

The Australind Swimming Club will send a dozen talented juniors to the Swimming WA Junior Short Course Championships this weekend in Perth. Held at HBF Arena, it will be a busy meet for all swimmers — especially for Tahlee Cam, Jay Pfoeffer and Lynlee Stiffle, who arrived back in the South West on Wednesday after competing in the School Sport Australia championships at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre earlier this week. “Tahlee is one of our multi-class swimmers,” ASC junior coach Caitlin Crispin said. “She’s really come out of her shell while she’s been over there. Social interactions are a bit of a challenge for her, but she’s been helping out some of the other teams — including competing for the NT’s relay team, because they were short. “From this, she’s really been able to extend herself by making new friends, meeting new people and learning other ways how multi-class swimmers train. “Lynlee Stiffle has just turned 10 years old and is already a country WA champion, competing for the State. I think she walked away with eight personal bests from a possible nine, which is just massive. “And Jay Pfoeffer also came home with a swag of medals from both individual and team events.” Aside from putting in the hard yards in the pool, Australind swimmers, coaches and parents have down their fair share out of it over the past year, due to their base at Leschenault Leisure Centre pool being closed for remedial work. However, rather than cutting down training sessions, everyone just got on with the business. “The pool was closed for pretty much all of our summer season,” Crispin said. “So we were travelling out to the Harvey pool for training. It was a bit of a nightmare in terms of cost and time spent getting to and from sessions there. “It also meant we couldn’t train as long as we usually would. “But it was a huge experience for our kids to train in a 50m pool and get used to sessions outside. “It was a real commitment test for our coaches and swimmers to keep going through these conditions, but they pulled it off and have been amazing.”