Bond Uni squad swimmers dominate

Bond University’s head swimming coach Chris Mooney threw a challenge to his star sprinters on the first night of the Australian Age Swimming Championships and they responded by blowing the competition out of the water.

Flynn Southam, a member of Australia’s world championship gold medal 4x100m freestyle relay team and a Paris Olympic medal chance, raised some eyebrows when he lined up for the 400m freestyle.

As did Mikayla Bird, who is considered the nation’s hottest butterfly prospect after dominating the 100m and 200m at last year’s Aussie championships and the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago.

“We don’t train for the 400m because it can affect the 100m, but we’ve found some benefits to occasionally racing it,” Mooney said.

“So we put Flynn and Mikayla in there on the opening night and they produced personal bests.

“I just wanted them to experience that, after 150m they are already in the hurt locker and there’s still 250m to go and it was pleasing to see how they rose to the challenge.

“Then we tested for lactic acid levels the next morning and they showed some amazing numbers, no sign of fatigue at all.”

Southam proved that by doubling up to win the 200m freestyle on day 3, in a time that shows he is hitting form at the right time as they gear up for June’s Olympic trials.

The 18-year-old clocked 1:46.43, which is just shy of his personal best of 1:46.24 of last year, which ranks No.2 for 17year-old Aussie boys.

Bond’s Director of Swimming Kyle Samuelson said the ability to find their best form at key moments was the mark of a great swimmer.

“He hasn’t been near that time since the World Junior Championships in August last year, so that is a really encouraging sign,” he said.

Teammate Gideon Burns also collected gold medals in the 200m and 100m breaststroke and the pair then joined Kalani Creech and Kody Byrne to claim gold in the 4x100m medley relay.

It led to a gold rush for the Bull Sharks swimmers.

Bird won another gold in the 100m butterfly and was successful alongside Ainsley Trotter, Hannah Casey and Milla Jansen in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

Jansen won the 50m freestyle and Kyla Brown won the 100m breaststroke and then won the 4x100m medley relay with Trotter and Casey.