Bond’s prowess in the pool was on show last week with the Bull Sharks bringing home sixteen gold and seven silver medals at the Australian Age Swimming Championships.
Bond University Director of Swimming, Kyle Samuelson, said his swimmers started well at the Age Championships last week and set a high bar for the Australian Open Championships which began on Wednesday on the Gold Coast.
“A lot of the swimmers will compete across the two meets, and we look for a consistent performance across the two competitions,” Samuelson said.
Bond came away from the Age Championships with gold in both the male and female 4X100m medley relays and the female 4X50m freestyle relay.
Three Australian records were broken along the way.
“The relays were a standout for me,” Samuelson said. “They show the really good depth of our team.”
Standout of the meet was 18-year-old Olympic hope Flynn Southam, who enjoyed a clean sweep in the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle events.
“Flynn has put on some better performances in the last six months, which is positive heading into the Opens this week and also the Olympic Trials,” Samuelson said.
Breaststroker Gideon Burns claimed a clean sweep of his own, taking out the 50m, 100m and 200m events.
“Gideon matched his best in the 100m breaststroke from Israel at the World Junior Championships last year and had a PB in the 200m,” Samuelson said.
Milla Jansen put her best foot forward going under 25 seconds in the 50m sprint freestyle with a time of 24.86.
Mikayla Bird, just 16 years of age, also had a solid meet. She dominated in the 100m and 200m butterfly but fell just shy of the qualifying time for the national team.
“I would’ve loved to see her put her qualifying time on,” Samuelson said. “We’re pretty close.
“She will have another shot at making a junior team next year.”
“Everyone did really well and swam well together in the relays, it was a hugely positive week with a great presence on deck.”
The opening night of the Australian Open Championships delivered a promising start for Bond.
Ben Armbruster took second in the 50m butterfly with a time of 23.35 and Mia O’Leary claimed fourth in the 50m breaststroke.
Southam will be on the hunt for medals across the male open freestyle events and especially in the 100m Freestyle with his personal best only just shy of the event’s benchmark, Olympic gold medallist Kyle Chalmers.
But Samuelson is keen to see other impressive results roll in across the weekend.
“Hopefully we will see some good results across the 100m ‘fly with Ben Armbruster and Jesse Coleman," he said.
“The Age and Open Champs are more just seeing where we're at and giving us a little bit of a yardstick for what we need to do over the next six or seven weeks.
“This is the last big one before the real big one.”
Bond’s swimmers are gearing up for the Olympic Trials which will take place June 10-15 in Brisbane.
The Australian Open Championships will run through to Sunday the 21st of April and you can catch all the swimming action on 9NOW.