Tassie in swim for national carnival

AUSTRALIA’S junior swimming talent will be diving into Hobart with the announcement that Tasmania will host the 2018 School Sport Australia Swimming Championships.

Held at the Hobart Aquatic Centre from July 25 to August 1, the championship will see participants aged 10 to 19 years old from across Australia’s states and territories travel to Hobart to take part.

Event manager Richard Welsh says the opportunity will have a positive impact on Tasmania’s local junior swimmers and the state’s tourism.

“Firstly, it’s great that our Tasmanian participants will get to compete close to home in a national championship,” Welsh said. “It allows our top junior swimmers to compete on the national stage without paying too much expenses.”

The swimming component of the school sport program has the second largest number of participants with only cross country having more.

Welsh said he recognised that hosting the championship would be great for Tasmania’s economy as there were expected to be about 650 swimmers competing.

“Once you add all of the officials and parents on top of the participants there will be an injection of close to 1000 people into Tasmania in the winter months of July and the start of August,” Welsh said.

Hobart Aquatic Centre yesterday hosted the Southern High School Sports Association swimming carnival, which saw close to 500 public secondary school students compete in the water.

Welsh was pleased with the turnout and hopes this type of event will open avenues for all Tasmanian students to compete at other swimming events like the School Sport Australia Swimming Championships.

“There are students competing at this event from schools ranging from Oatlands down to Huonville,” he said.

“It’s great to be able to give students from remote schools the opportunity to compete in sports.”