Eden Marine High School student and Eden resident Georgia Caldwell has again struck gold in the swimming pool, after a successful campaign at the NSW State Age Short Course Championships last weekend.
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The 12 year old travelled to Sydney’s Olympic Park and was joined by an intensely competitive field of 1,276 swimmers from across the state.
Supporting Georgia was mother Melina Caldwell, who said Georgia continued to improve as each hour passed.
“She had a pretty rough start on the Friday afternoon - she didn’t have a good swim and was in a bad frame of mind – but she got better over the weekend,” Ms Caldwell said on Tuesday.
Ms Caldwell said Georgia swam in six events, breaking personal bests as she powered her way closer and closer to the winner’s podium.
“Georgia swam in the 200m medley and came 15th,” Ms Caldwell said.
“She swam in the 50m freestyle and came 5th out of 36. The time was 28.32 which was a personal best. That was an interesting race; not even a second’s difference between first and tenth.”
In the 200m butterfly Georgia came fourth out of sixteen competitors, achieving a personal best of just over two seconds, before the medals started to reign down.
“It was on Sunday that she ended up winning, in the 200m freestyle,” Ms Caldwell said.
Georgia defeated 24 swimmers to claim gold, and took a staggering 3.38 seconds off her personal best, winning in 2.09 seconds.
Georgia then achieved bronze in the 100m freestyle and silver in the 100m butterfly – again beating her personal best – and was announced State Age Champion for the 12 years 200m freestyle.
Georgia said she loved competing in the 100m and 200m freestyle events the best, “because its my best stroke and fun to do”, and said her gold medal win was a highlight mostly because of smashing her personal best.
“I dove in and I was feeling good, and I really wanted to get a PB because my coach said I could get under 2.10,” Georgia said on Tuesday.
Georgia is now focused on qualifying for the Australian long course (50m) Championships as a 13 year old next year. For that, she said she has to “train harder and think positive” and step up her training from 3 days to 5 days a week including gym conditioning.
“There are some mornings where I don’t feel good and my muscles are sore, but now (to qualify) I will just have to go through the pain,” Georgia said.