Future swim stars on the blocks

By Marc McGowan
THE Australian Age Championships is the Holy Grail for the country’s future swimming stars.
Casey TigerSharks Aleysha Tokai, Tyrone Dobrunz and Stephanie Demestichas enter the annual meet ranked in the top three in at least one of their individual events.
Tokai, 15, represented her country at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in January and this will be her fourth age nationals campaign.
She is the TigerSharks’ top medal hope and a genuine podium contender in the 15-year-old girls’ 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle and 100m butterfly.
“You’ve always got to be so careful about organising and warming-up properly and making sure you don’t stress out,” Tokai said.“It’s just another meet and you have to think like that. If you do well, you do well.
“Sometimes you want to get a bit caught up in it and go ‘I should be excited’, but you have got to bring yourself back and just concentrate on what you’re doing.”
Tokai is not allowing herself to consider winning a medal just yet, but is quietly confident of having a strong competition.
“It would be incredible. Last year I was hoping I was going to get a medal and I missed out – I think my best place was fifth,” she said.
“This year I’m going in ranked a lot higher, but there’s more pressure on the other kids – they might have to watch out for me.”
Breaststroker Dobrunz, 14, was racked with nerves in his Australian Age Championships debut last year, but believes he will be better for the experience.
“I’m just hoping to get a PB. It would be great (to win a medal), but I’m just focusing on training really hard,” he said. “I’m hoping to get the best out of myself. I was very nervous (last year) and I don’t think I coped very well with it.
“You just have to focus on your stuff and what you have to do.”
Demestichas, 14, is also preparing for her second crack at the national stage. She is ranked second in the 14-year-old girls’ 800m freestyle, fourth in the 400m freestyle and 14th in the 200m freestyle.