Bright eyed Junior Pan Pac Team has sights on 2020

  

Swimming Australia, July 8, 2016: Australia’s Gold Coast gold National Youth coach Glenn Beringen is hoping a strategic move to integrate the 2016 Australian Junior Pan Pac Team with the Rio Olympic Team will prove to be a masterstroke come August in Maui and ultimately in Toyko 2020.

Positive signs from the three days in Brisbane during the Swimming Australia Grand Prix has already shown up with the Pan Pac Team kicking on during their week-long Youth camp at the National Training Centre at the AIS this week.

Their selection followed outstanding results from the Georgina Hope Foundation Australian Age and Hancock Prospecting Australian Open Championships In Adelaide in April.

The Junior Pan Pac Team members were rewarded when invited to stay in the same hotel as the Rio Olympic team, sharing the same team, meeting and dining room.

They also stepped up to race head-to-head with the cream of Australia’s Olympians in the successful two-day meet, which saw Cate Campbell set a new world record of 52.06 in the 100m freestyle.

It was a magical moment that Junior Pan Pac team members, Queenslanders Gemma Cooney, 16 and Eliza King, 15 who were in the same race, will never forget.

The Juniors also celebrated their own milestone when 2014 and 2016 Junior Pan Pac Team member, Brisbane Grammar’s Minna Atherton set her own Junior World Record, stopping the clock at 59.34, to finish a touch behind world champion and training partner Emily Seebohm’s 59.20 in the 100m backstroke.

“There is a sense of maturity in this group which we have seen throughout this camp and to have the Junior Team in the same competition environment as the Olympic team was a strategic move and I think it has proved to be invaluable already,” said Beringen.

“We have purposely mirrored the competition opportunities and the crossover in exposure to the senior team has been really good in their development.

“This camp is an ideal familarisation for athletes, coaches and staff and to reinforce our values, goals and objectives.

“We will tailor their individual needs as well as those of the team.”

In what will be a “mini Olympics” the rising stars of swimming will face off against the cream of the crop in the USA, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and other Pacific Rim teams in Hawaii from August 24-27.

The Junior Pan Pacs has been a happy stomping ground for future Olympians with 10 members of the 2012 Junior Pan Pac Team named on this year’s Olympic team - Brianna Throssell (WA), Georgia Bohl (QLD), Taylor McKeown (QLD), Keryn McMaster (QLD), Leah Neale (QLD), Madi Wilson (QLD), Mack Horton (VIC), David Morgan (QLD), Jarrod Poort (NSW) and Koti Ngawati (VIC) all stepping up to this year’s Rio contingent.

Beringen said the likes of Atherton, Matt Wilson and Sian Whittaker would be amongst a group of athletes who would also continue to receive further international competition at the US Open and World Cup meets later in the year.

Wilson won the 100 and 200m breaststroke double in fields including Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Olympians.

Wilson, 17, won the 100m breaststroke in 1:02.18 from Rio Olympians Josh Palmer (1:02.28) and Australian champion Jake Packard (1:02.75) and the 200m in 2:13.83 from Rio-bound Gold Coast-based Canadian Ashton Baumann (2:15.87), the 23-year-old son of Canadian legend Alex Baumann.

Australian Swim Team, 2016 Junior Pan Pacific Championships, Hawaii, August 24-27:

MEN
Jordan Brunt (Southport Olympic, QLD)
Jack Cartwright (St Peters Western, QLD)
Daniel Cave (Melbourne Vicentre, VIC)
Vincent Dai (SOPAC, NSW)
Daniel Jacobson (Albany Creek, QLD)
Leon MacAllister (Carlile, NSW)
Ethan McAleese (Rockingham, WA)
Alex Milligan (UWA West Coast, WA)
Max Osborn (TSS Aquatics, QLD)
Nathan Robinson (St Peters Western, QLD)
David Schlicht (MLC Aquatic, VIC)
Louis Townsend (Rackley, QLD)
Jacob Vincent (Miami, QLD)
Jacob Whale (Flyers, QLD)
Matthew Wilson (SOPAC, NSW)
Elijah Winnington (Bond, QLD)
Bradley Woodward (Mingara Aquatic, NSW)
 
WOMEN
Minna Atherton (Brisbane Grammar, QLD)
Molly Batchelor (Melbourne Vicentre, VIC)
Sarah Beale (Acacia Bayside, QLD)
Gemma Cooney (River City Rapids, QLD)
Francesca Fitzhenry (Trinity Grammar, NSW)
Julia Hawkins (Nunawading, VIC)
Eliza King Rackley (QLD)
Elli Mackay (St Peters Western, QLD)
Kaylee  McKeown (USC Spartans, QLD)
Mikayla Messer (Chandler, QLD)
Kirrily Siebenhausen (Rackley, QLD)
Laura Taylor (TSS Aquatics, QLD)
Ariarne Titmus (St Peters Western, QLD)
 
Team Leader: Jamie Salter
Head Coach: Glenn Beringen   
Coaches: Dean Boxall (St Peters Western, QLD), Shaun Crow (Acacia Bayside, QLD) Damien Jones (Rackley, QLD), Adam Kable (SOPAC, NSW), Ian Pope (Melbourne Vicentre, VIC)
Support Staff: Kirsty Greening (Manager), Cecilia Nguyen (Manager), Elise Bereza (Psychology), Jonathon Hart (Psychology) Luke Eggleston (Doctor), Cory Prout (Physiotherapist) Tom Barton (Physiotherapist), Laura Gray (Massage Therapist), Nick Smith (Performance Analysis), Simon Pearson (Performance Analysis), Erin McLeave (Physiology).