A flood of swimmers shattered all expectations on Sunday, December 8 at an annual Summer Development Meet in the region.
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The meet host, the Goulburn Amateur Swimming Club, usually expects 80 or so competitors to take part.
Sunday saw 129 registered to compete at the Goulburn Aquatic Centre.
This outcome was particularly pleasing for Goulburn, which provided roughly 50 of the 129 swimmers present.
"It was a well-executed day, particularly for the Goulburn swimmers," GASC secretary Lauren Wehbe said. "It's often their first introduction [to competitive swimming]."
The development meets are a series of four competitions aimed, as Wehbe suggested, at inexperienced swimmers who are in the early stages of the sport.
They are held in conjunction with the rest of the Canberra region, and swimmers from Canberra, Crookwell, Yass, and even the south coast often turn up.
The event also gives young swimmers an ideal opportunity to begin forming friendships with peers from other clubs.
With the thought of developing stronger relationships with neighbouring swimming clubs in mind, the GASC also hosted a meet last Friday night that involved the Crookwell Swimming Club.
Called the Christmas Teamwork Challenge, the meet required swimmers to work in teams to complete a series of nine events.
No swimmer was be allowed to compete in more than three events, and no team had more than two swimmers over the age of 10.
To encourage participation from younger swimmers, those under the age of eight had their points doubled.
Along with making friends and strengthening connections between the two clubs, the challenge also gave Crookwell swimmers the opportunity to swim in a full-length 50-metre pool.
This was the first time the Christmas Teamwork Challenge was held, and Wehbe said it was an idea from the GASC's new-look committee.
"The executive committee at the club is brand new: it's our first roles this year," she said.
"We're looking at it with a fresh set of eyes with kids who have only swum [with the GASC] for a couple of years."
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