Memories made of gold

Medal-winners Josh Beaver, Stephanie Demestichas, Craig Watson, Aleysha Tokai and Tyrone Dobrunz helped the Casey TigerSharks finish 17th at last week’s Australian Age Championships. 29766 Picture: Meagan Rogers

By Marc McGowan
CASEY TigerSharks head coach Ben Hiddlestone says he’ll remember last week’s Australian Age Championships in Sydney for the rest of his career.
And there’s little wonder why considering the TigerSharks won a total of two gold, four silver and three bronze medals to finish 17th out of more than 200 competing clubs.
Casey’s previous best results were last year’s two bronze medals and a 32nd placing in the club standings.
Fifteen-year-old Aleysha Tokai and 16-year-old Josh Beaver became the TigerSharks’ inaugural national champions on back-to-back nights last Friday and Saturday.
The victory capped a superb meet for Tokai that saw her win one gold, one silver and two bronze medals and earn a spot on the seven-strong Australian Female Age All-Stars team.
She led all the way in the 200m freestyle before fighting out a tense finish with New South Wales competitor Jessica Ashwood, who also made the All-Stars squad.
Beaver qualified fastest for the 200m backstroke and flew home to steal the win by just over one-tenth of a second.
Hiddlestone expects both swimmers to be included in the trans-Tasman junior Australian team that will compete against New Zealand in July.
Sixteen-year-old Craig Watson, who won silver in the 200m individual medley, and 14-year-old Stephanie Demestichas, who claimed silver medals in the 400m and 800m freestyle, are also in contention.
But Hiddlestone admitted his swimmers’ results exceeded his wildest expectations.
“It was a fantastic meet, unbelievable – I can’t believe it,” he beamed.
“It will take a while to settle in. It was well and truly above the dreams I had or expectations for the team.
“Everything went right and absolutely nothing went wrong. It was just one of those meets that I’ll remember for the rest of my coaching career.
“It was that big and that special … just in terms of the results, it was unbelievable.”
Fourteen-year-old Tyrone Dobrunz was the club’s other medallist – scoring bronze in the 200m breaststroke – and he also won another bronze for Victoria in the 14-and-under boys’ 4 x 50m medley relay.
Olivia Raiti, 13, just missed becoming Casey’s sixth medallist when she touched in fourth place in the 200m butterfly.
Hiddlestone believes the club and its swimmers have established a new respect from their rivals.
And he admitted that part of their improvement came from him changing his own approach to the competition.
“I didn’t take it so seriously this year while we were at the meet,” Hiddlestone said.
“Last year we did team meetings every morning, but I realised the hard work was already done and you can’t really change much except their attitude once they’re at the pool ready to race.
“That created more of a low-pressure environment plus the fact they are realising they are doing a lot more work than most kids in Australia.
“They were really confident deep down inside themselves because they knew they’d done tons and tons of work over the years and they were all healthy this year.”