Casey TigerSharks, back from left: Craig Watson, Brad York, Dylan Warren, Aleysha Tokai, Arthur Miklos, and front: Josh Beaver, Tyrone Dobrunz, Arnon Lodder medalled at the Victorian Sprint Championships on the weekend. 27294 Picture: Meagan RogersBy Marc McGowan
THE Casey TigerSharks took a break from their heavy workload in the pool to star at the Victorian Sprint Championships on the weekend.
The TigerSharks’ 13-strong medal haul included four gold, eight silver and one bronze.
Nineteen-year-old Brad York (50m backstroke), 14-year-old Jacob Kennedy (50m breaststroke) and 11-year-old Arnon Lodder (50m breaststroke) won individual gold medals in their age groups.
York also snared silver in the men’s 19-and-over 50m butterfly.
Casey’s 16-and-under men’s 5 x 50m freestyle relay team, comprising Craig Watson, Dylan Warren, Arthur Miklos, Tyrone Dobrunz and Josh Beaver, claimed gold in the last event of the meet.
Other medallists were Aleysha Tokai (two silvers), Josh Beaver (two silvers), Watson (two silvers and a bronze) and Dobrunz (silver).
TigerSharks head coach Ben Hiddlestone played down the importance of the results amid hard training, but was pleasantly surprised with his swimmers’ times.
“We still worked pretty hard and swam 50km last week then took Thursday and Friday fairly easily,” he said.
“It’s a tune-up meet for most clubs because everyone is training pretty hard ahead of the open and age nationals.
“It’s a sprint meet where everyone rocks up and blasts out some 50s to see how quick they are.”
Hiddlestone was particularly chuffed with York’s personal-best time of 27.12 in the 50m backstroke ahead of next month’s Australian Swimming Championships in Sydney.
“Brad is looking to make the semi-finals in the 50m back and maybe even in the 100m back (at nationals),” Hiddlestone said.
“His time in the 50m back should get him into a semi-final as it is and he’s maybe 0.8 or 0.9 (of a second) off a final, which is a fair way in a 50m still.
“But he’s going 0.3 PBs on the weekend, so he’s lucky that he’s a late bloomer in his career and is taking so much off his personal-best time at the age of 19.”
Hiddlestone was also impressed with Watson, Kennedy and Beaver’s times and said Dobrunz had been doing some ‘amazing things in training’.
The Australian Age Championships is in Sydney from 13 to 18 April.
