National Season began in January 2024 with 6 of our hardiest athletes & Coach Lachy making the trek across Australia to Busselton, WA to compete in the Australian Open Water Championships. Huge congratulations goes to Luke Higgs who took out first place honours in the 7.5k as well as the 5k – what an effort, what a swimmer!! His amazing swims earned him a place on the Australian Junior team at Junior World Championships in Italy later this year – WOOHOO LUKE!! Can’t wait to see you in action in Italy in September! Massive thank you to Lachy who ably guided our swimmers throughout their open water journey.
The next National event took place in April where our Age & MC Athletes spent 9 mostly sunny days in the glorious Gold Coast followed by 4 more days of beautiful sunshine for the Open Athletes.
It was so heartwarming to see first time national swimmers and experienced national swimmers come together to battle it out in all weather conditions. The swimmers were all excited and had an awesome but tiring meet with ups and downs but mostly PBs and lots of lessons learnt.
Congratulations to all the Athletes who qualified for Nationals, which is a small feat in itself, and then to PB and qualify for finals and then win Gold, Silver, Bronze and top 10 finishes was an even bigger bonus.
Over the 9 days, 34 of our athletes competed in 99 Individual events, 12 Club relays and 32 Finals. On top of that 3 of our swimmers, Lach Davies, Hannah Huisman and Bailey Screen, were chosen to represent NSW in the State relays.
Special mention to Lach Davies and Luke Higgs who between them took out GOLD in ALL the 15 years freestyle events, 50m & 100m to Lachie and 200, 400, 800 & 1500 to Luke Higgs; and to Sam Higgs who took out the double GOLD in the 200 & 400 Individual Medley – well done boys!
Our medallists were:
Gemma Sellick
– GOLD 100 Back
– SILVER 50 Back
– BRONZE 50 Breast
– BRONZE 200 Individual Medley
Remy Lennon
– SILVER 200 Breast
Luke Higgs
– GOLD 1500 Free
– GOLD 800 Free
– GOLD 400 Free
– GOLD 200 Free
– GOLD 400 Individual Medley
Hannah Huisman
– GOLD 50 Free
– SILVER 50 Butterfly
– BRONZE 100 Free
Lach Davies
– GOLD 50 Free
– GOLD 100 Free
– SILVER 200 Back
– SILVER 100 Back
– SILVER 50 Back
Sam Higgs
– GOLD 200 Breast
– GOLD 200 Individual Medley
– GOLD 400 Individual Medley (795 Fina points)
– BRONZE 200 Back
Boys 14-15 Years
– BRONZE 4×50 Free Relay
Other National Finalists:
Gemma Sellick – 100 Breast
Sam Higgs – 400 Free
Hannah Huisman – 100 Butterfly
Bailey Screen – 100 Breast
Remy Lennon – 200 Individual Medley, 200 Back
Noah McLaren – 50 Free, 100 Free
Cooper Screen – 50 Free, 100 Free
Matilda Young – 200 Free
We had a smaller team compete at Open Nationals with Ryan, Tyler, Nadine, Hamish, Christine & Gemma taking on 13 Individual Events and 4 Finals.
Our Finalists were:
Gemma Sellick – 100 Back, 50 Back
Hamish McLellan – 100 Butterfly
Tyler Johnson – 400 Individual Medley
Congratulations to all our swimmers! It was so awesome to see you achieve your goals and your hard work and consistent efforts pay off.
A huge congratulations to Sam Higgs whose hard work, dedication and outstanding performances at the National Age Championships earned him a spot on the Australian team at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships. This is Sam’s second time representing Australia after competing at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad last August. The championships are a major benchmark meet for the Junior Dolphins ahead of the World Junior Championships next year and act as a litmus test against the best international juniors including swimmers from the United States, Japan and Canada.
Huge thank you to all our coaches, Angelo, Lachy, Sandi and Narelle who kept encouraging our swimmers throughout the Age, MC & Open Nationals and lead up training. It was truly memorable.
Thank you to the wonderful parents, families & friends who supported the whole team and to those who watched the competition online.
Thank you to Miklin, Okanui and Engine for our awesome uniforms – we were certainly easily spotted in our hot pink and I think the commentator’s favourite (but I might be completely biased! 
)
Athletes, your efforts paid off and you should be extremely proud of yourselves, we certainly are! Warringah ended up 10th in Australia in the combined Age & MC pointscore – WOOHOO!!!
