The Bull Sharks swimming program celebrated a year that included Olympic medals, a third straight UniSport Games championships and success at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
Director of Swimming Kyle Samuelson breaks down the key achievements and what the future holds for the squad.
Season highlight:
It would have to be the selection of students Flynn Southam and Ben Armbruster onto the Australian team for their Olympic debuts.
The summer focus:
Whilst the Olympic campaign is over there is World Short Course Championships in Budapest in early December. Our Olympians are taking a well-earned break before jumping back in but that leaves the door open for other Bull Sharks including Josh Collett, Milla Jansen and Jesse Coleman.
Three cheers for:
Our support staff, from our office staff, in particular Hayley Martin, who does a mountain of work for our student- athletes right through to our coaches who steer the ship every day.
Everyone fell in love with:
It is hard to go past the boy from Stanthorpe, Ben Armbruster. He came from seemingly out of the picture in the 50m freestyle to claim a spot in his first Olympic Team. What a story.
Expect big things from:
We have some fantastic youth swimmers to keep an eye on in the lead up to LA 2028. As well as this year’s Olympians Flynn and Ben who are still very young, we have athletes such as Milla Jansen who will be looking to step up and take a position in the highly regarded women's sprint relay team for Australia. Milla just completed a successful Junior Pan Pacific Championships where for the first time she broke the 54 second barrier for 100m freestyle. Jesse Coleman is a threat in the 100 butterfly who narrowly missed the Olympic team. Jesse is a hard-working athlete that will be throwing everything at making his first senior national team.