Marlins show improvement

At the beginning of the swimming season, the Manjimup Marlins dived head-first into training and have emerged at the end of the season a much-improved team.

On Friday, the group of swimmers attended a presentation at the pool, which recognised some of the achievements over the course of the season.

Manjimup Marlins coach Pauline Collins said the club had increased its members and had formalised training to accommodate differing skill levels and allow for proper coaching of the swimmers.

“This training structure now sees the club offer three different programs, or squads as we call them – the dolphins, the recreational and the competitive squad,” she said.

“With a strong committee and the support of parents, our achievements as a club have not gone unnoticed in the swimming community.

“Our club continues to excel in the competitive realm with extremely high results for not only our seasoned swimmers but also our new competitive swimmers.”

Club president Rebecca Wallace said the strong results culminated with Brielle Krispyn, who won the Junior Swimmer of the Year award for WA.

“This result was a fantastic achievement and a first for our club and is a testimony to the fantastic coaches we have at the Manjimup Marlin Swimming Club,” she said.

“The achievements of our other competitive swimmers and our recreational and dolphins swimmers also deserves to be mentioned and the massive improvements in the swimmers as the year progressed has been fantastic.”

Other great achievements included Georgia Sarre placing 9th in the girls nine-year-old 50m breaststroke with a personal best time in the Junior Short Course Championships at Perth’s HBF Stadium.

Jack Perry competed in the Long Course State Age Championships at the end of last year and his times qualified him for the National competition, which he was unable to attend.

However he also competed in three meets for the Short Course Competition and constantly achieved personal bests.

Since November last year, Jack has won 21 medals in total.

Head coach Hyojin Son said the club had a total of 43 swimmers for the season.

“We are looking forward to the new season and with more children and parents getting involved in our club, there are exciting times ahead of us all,” she said.