Swimming Gunnedah made a splash at two coastal carnivals and at Sydney in the past fortnight, at the start of the 2025 long course season.
The squad competed at Central Coast, Port Macquarie and North Sydney where they showed huge improvements from last season.
At the Mingara carnival at Tumbi Umbi, 10 swimmers dived off the blocks for Gunnedah at their first summer meet.
Nathan Reeves (12) made massive gains with six personal best (PB) times from six races. He picked up gold in the 50m backstroke and silver in the 50m freestyle and 50m breaststroke while taking a huge 17 seconds off the 200m freestyle.
Nathan’s brother Shaun (10) clocked four PBs, dropping 10 seconds from his 100m freestyle.
The four Thompson siblings blitzed their PB times after some solid winter training. Nayte (10) recorded six PBs from six races, shaving four seconds off his 100m freestyle and five off his 100m backstroke.
Riley Thompson (14) dropped time in five of his events, while Ayden (9) made huge improvements by dropping 10 seconds off his 100m breaststroke, 14 seconds off the 100m backstroke and eight seconds off the 100m freestyle.
Tayla (12) showed her versatility in the 200m individual medley (IM), taking home silver and a 3.18 second best time while clocking four PBs.
Philipa Wark (10) blitzed all of her races with eight PBs from eight events. She knocked off almost 13 seconds in the 100m breaststroke, 10 seconds in the 100m backstroke and more than five seconds in the 50m breaststroke.
Philipa also nailed silver medals in the 50m butterfly and 100m backstroke, and bronze in the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m and 100m breaststroke.
Jessica Dalessandro entered the record books, as she broke her own 100m freestyle record by four seconds in a time of 1.48.97.
The seven-year-old pocket rocket also clocked four best times and won silver in the 50m butterfly where she dropped 6.18 seconds.
Cameron Sills broke the 11 years boys 400m IM record by eight seconds, previously held by Josh Spinks.
Cameron collected gold in the 50m breaststroke and silver in the 400m IM and 200m IM.
Macey Dalessandro (12) also showed improvement with best times in the 50m and 200m freestyle and 100m backstroke.
The Fitzgerald brothers did a double and competed at the North Sydney and Port Macquarie meets in the past two weeks.
In Sydney, Banjo (11) achieved gold in the 200m backstroke and slashed more than 11 seconds from his 200m IM time.
Jimmy (9) dropped time off his 50m butterfly and 100m freestyle.
In Port Macquarie, Marsel Tikhonskiy (12) smashed his PBs with a massive 10 best times. He collected gold in the 100m backstroke, silver in the 100m and 200m freestyle and 50m backstroke, and bronze in the 200m backstroke.
Marsel slashed more than a minute from his 800m freestyle PB, and dropped 15 seconds off his 200m freestyle time and 11 seconds off his 100m breaststroke.
Banjo picked up gold in the 100m butterfly and 50m backstroke, silver in the 100m and 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly, and bronze in the 100m freestyle.
Jimmy nailed silver in the 50m breaststroke and bronze in the 100m butterfly, and he clocked six best times from eight events including a five second PB in the 100m breaststroke.
Brothers Shaun and Nathan Reeves at the Mingara meet.
Philipa Wark with her medal haul at the Central Coast.
The Gunnedah squad at the Mingara swim carnival at Tumbi Umbi. Back: Nayte Thompson, Tayla Thompson, Cameron Sills, Nathan Reeves, Riley Thompson. Front: Jess Dalessandro, Macey Dalessandro, Shaun Reeves, Ayden Thompson.
Photos: Supplied.
