Ky is travelling nicely for his Currumbin club
KY Kinsela has spent so little time at Currumbin this season he might have to reintroduce himself to teammates this weekend.
The rising swim star lives a four-hour drive away from the Gold Coast club and has been busy representing Australia and competing in the Oceans 6 series across the eastern seaboard over summer.
As a result, he has had few chances to spend time at his adopted club, Currumbin.
Kinsela, 17, will compete in 15 events this weekend, mainly in the under-19 division as he continues his remarkable development.
He will step up to the open
division to fill a swim position in Currumbin’s team for the sixperson taplin relay, an event that showcases a club’s overall strength in water events.
Kinsela, who lives at Upper Orara near Coffs Harbour in NSW, has made a habit of stepping up this season.
He thought he would tackle the first race of the Oceans 6 series, an open-age event run in conjunction with the Nutri-Grain ironman competition, just to gauge his progress.
“I was going to see how I went,” he said.
“I went there thinking I would come halfway through the field.”
Kinsela did better than that. He won the run-swim-run at Queenscliff in Sydney and his season program was determined.
“After I went all right there I decided I would go to the rest of them,” he said.
The modest teenager went on to compete in all six events in Queensland, NSW and Victoria and finished third in the overall point-scores for the run-swim-run and swim titles.
In between his Oceans 6 commitments, Kinsela represented the Australian youth team in the International Surf Rescue Challenge in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand.
He won the ironman in all three youth Tests against the Kiwis, South Africa, Great Britain and the US.
Kinsela, whose coaching at home is overseen by his mother Melinda, has a swimming background which includes winning open-age ocean races on the NSW north coast as a 13-year-old Nipper.
But his switch to Currumbin from the Sawtell club last season has given him new goals.
“I’m definitely aiming towards iron but I want to stay up there in swimming as well,” he said.
“I’ve always enjoyed doing the swim so I would like to keep going with that.”