Swimming Report

Friday 7 March 2025

GPS 3 – Shore Swim Team

On Friday 7 March, the Swim Team headed to Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre (SOPAC) for GPS 3 and a hotly contested evening of swimming as the number of point-scoring events considerably increased from GPS 1 and 2.

Heading into the evening, Shore was ranked 1st for the Open Relay, and 2nd across all Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories — a remarkable start to our season and one the team hoped to build upon.

Opens 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay

Continuing from tremendous victories in the Open Relays from GPS 1 and 2, the team of James Bestic, Ethan Ng, Noah McLaren and William Bestic lined up for the 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay. James opened proceedings with a national qualifying time going 24.88, handing over to Ethan who split a 24.69 – his fastest ever – who gave it to Noah who got incredibly close to a sub-24 swim, splitting 24.05, with William jumping into the water with a commanding lead over The Scots College (Scots) and Newington College (Newington) and swimming a blistering 23.98 anchor leg.

This team broke the previous GPS record in a time of 1:37.60, a sensational performance and a time which — outside of Shore’s team next year — will be incredibly difficult to break. This record could stand for a long time!

Junior / Intermediate / Senior – 400m Freestyle

Next up was the 400m Freestyle where Harrison Ayer placed 1st for Juniors, Oliver Kelly 2nd in the Intermediate division and Ethan Cook 3rd in Seniors, putting up great swims to come away with a significant amount of points.

Shore achieves THREE new GPS Records!

It is an absolute privilege to be writing this. At GPS 3, Shore broke three GPS records! In addition to the 4 x 50m Freestyle Relay we also achieved the following results:

• Intermediate 4 x 50m Medley Relay
  The remarkable team of Jonty Jagger (Backstroke – 28.79), Sam Chan (Breaststroke – 34.01), William Bestic (Butterfly – 25.32) and Noah McLaren (Freestyle – 24.18) broke the record by over a second to set a new time of 1:52.30. Incredible swimming from these boys!
  
  
• 16 Years 50m Butterfly – William Bestic
  William, who was also part of the Opens 4 x 50m Freestyle and the Intermediate 4 x 50m Medley, stepped up for the individual 50m Butterfly and set a new personal best for himself, and in the process broke the GPS record by a 0.01 margin to set the new benchmark at 25.72.

Other Top Three performances on the night included:

50m Freestyle	100m Backstroke	50m Butterfly	100m Breaststroke
Daniel Jin – equal 1st Brody Semmens – 2nd Harrison Ayer – 1st Archie Lawry – 2nd William Bestic – 1st Ethan Ng – 3rd James Bestic – 2nd	Intermediate: Jonty Jagger – 2nd Senior: Harry Pollitt – 3rd	Daniel Jin – 1st Harrison Ayer – 2nd Alexander Freischmidt – 3rd William Bestic – 1st Ethan Ng – 2nd Daniel Becker – 3rd	Senior: Ethan Cook – 1st

The evening was capped with the medley relays, with Shore finishing 4th in Juniors, 1st in Intermediates (with a GPS record) and 2nd in the Seniors.

After these terrific performances, the point scores are looking great across the board with Shore currently placed as follows

• Open Relay – 1st
• Junior – 2nd – behind St Joseph’s College by only 8.5 points
• Intermediate – 1st
• Senior – 2nd – behind St Ignatius’ College Riverview by 1 point

It is onwards and upwards as we turn our attention to GPS 4 on 14 March before a week off and the big GPS 5 on Friday 28 March.

Go Shore!

Mr Tom O’Keeffe
Head of Swimming