National Open Swimming Titles

The National Open Swimming Championships were held in Adelaide from 18 to 22 May. Somerset College had two students, Milla Jansen and Holly Hembling attend their first National Open Championships and the Somerset Swim Club had six swimmers accompanied by coach Ashely Callus including alumni Carlos Licuanan and Tom Nowakowski qualify and travel to the meet. The Championships is the highest calibre of swimming in Australia and for this meet, doubled as the selection trials for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and also the 2022 World Championships.

Somerset Swim Club swimmers Tom Nowakowski and Grayson Bell had outstanding swims in the 50m Freestyle with Tom winning his first National Title in a time of 21.86sec. Grayson placed second in 22.08sec to complete a perfect result for Somerset with both athletes times under the qualifying time to compete in the Commonwealth Games and World Championships. Both swimmers and coach Ash Callus will travel on the Australian Team to Europe next month. Grayson had a fantastic meet also finishing sixth in the 50m Butterfly and fourth in the 50m Breaststroke as well.

Somerset’s other swimmers swam well with Ethan Banks making a final for the 50m Butterfly finishing 15th and Andrew Newling making a final for the 50m Freestyle finishing in 21st. One of the youngest swimmers at the meet, Holly Hembling (14 years) qualified for a final in the 50m Breaststroke and finished 24th.

Milla Jansen continued her great form this year racing in the highly competitive freestyle events and made finals in the 50m, 100m Freestyle as well as the 100m backstroke. Milla finished seventh in the 50m Freestyle with an outstanding swim as well as placing 20th in both the 100m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke. Milla has been selected onto the Australian Junior Dolphins Team to compete in Hawaii at the Junior Pan Pacific Games in August. This is a great steppingstone for Milla as she continues to improve through the Age group ranks and into the Open category.

Well done to all Somerset’s swimmers and coach Ash on these great results for Somerset and best of luck in the coming months at the Junior Pan Pacific Games, Commonwealth Games and World Championships.

See this story in this week's Spartan Stream.