EIGHT GOLD TO AUSSIE TEAM ON FINAL NIGHT OF YOUTH OLYMPICS
Sydney, January 18th: THE Australian Flippers have dominated the Australian Youth Olympic Festival (AYOF) winning 19 medals, eight of them gold, taking the overall Australian medal tally to 55 medals including 19 gold. Brooke Hanson reports....
Gold medallists included Kenneth To who claimed two gold, Jessica Legge, Luke Kerswell, Kelly Marquenie, Bronte Campbell and the Australian gold medley relay teams.
It was a great end to a successful four days of competition for Australia's new breed of swimmers. The Australian team took inspiration from the final team meeting, each other's performances and the cheer squad in the stands.
The star of the final session was sixteen-year-old Kenneth To who broke an Australian 16-years-age record and added two gold and one silver to the two gold medals won earlier in the festival.
With a strong second half of the race To won the 200m individual medley in a time of 2.04.03, setting a new Australian Age 16-years record. Flippers team mate Daniel Tranter (2.06.86) claimed the silver medal ahead of Canadian David Dimitrov (2.07.47).
Just 20 minutes later To (2.18.99) backed up to win the 200m breaststroke beating Japan's Masaya Kano (2.19.99) by exactly one second. To's team mate Nicholas Schafer (2.20.00) missed the silver to the Japanese by 0.01 of a second but was happy to swim a personal best time and get a podium finish.
The Matthew Brown coached To continued to back up his races and after another 20-minute break he won silver with the Australian green team in the 4x100m medley relay.
"I've had a great week at the Youth Olympic Festival and I'm so happy with my results," To said.
"The record in the medley means a lot but the gold medals are the most important, winning the 4x100 freestyle relay with my team mates has definitely been the highlight of the week for me.
"I've had a great time being apart of this Australian team and it's given me more incentive to compete at an Olympic Games."
Gold Coast freestyler Kelly Marquenie (8.49.17) continued her impressive form swimming an eight second personal best time to win gold in the women's 800m freestyle. Silver medallist in the 400m freestyle Jessica Ashwood (8.49.73) repeated her efforts again, taking the silver, holding off a fast finishing Alannah Jury (8.50.62) of New Zealand who won her country's first medal.
Australia achieved a clean sweep in the women's 200m individual medley with the opening ceremony torch bearer Jessica Legge (2.17.52) leading the way. Legge broke the Australian Youth Olympic Festival record to win her first individual gold medal of the week touching out Katie Goldman (2.17.71) and team mate Anastasia Osadchuk (2.19.02).
"This week has been so much fun, I never thought I would get the opportunity to carry the torch that was a huge honour, I didn't expect to get the record but it's just great to win the gold medal and improve by time by almost a second," an elated Legge said.
The men's 50m freestyle dash followed in the same fashion with a trifecta from three 17-year-old up and coming Australian sprinters.
The winner of the 100m freestyle Luke Kerswell (23.10) took out the 50m and 100m double. Kerswell's time broke the AYOF record previously held by Kyle Bubolz, USA (23.30) set back in 2003. The silver medal went to James Roberts (23.27) and bronze to James Sweeny (23.67).
In the women's 50m freestyle Bronte Campbell (26.19) won her first gold medal of the festival beating Canadian Chanta Van Landeghem (26.30) and Australian team mate Phoebe Cater (26.49) who won bronze.
When asked about whether she can swim as fast as her sister Cate Campbell Olympic bronze medallist in the 50m freestyle Bronte said:
"I'd love to go to London in 2012 with my sister but for the moment I'm just looking at going 25 seconds for the 50m freestyle, this week has inspired me to continue to get faster," she said.
In the men's 1500m freestyle Australia's Sam Sheppard (15.57.21) finished with the bronze medal behind gold medal winner Chad Bobrosky (15.50.04) of Canada and silver medallist China's Yunqi Li (15.53.60).
The final swims of the festival were the 4x100m medley relays with the Australian teams over-powering the opposition.
In the women's Australia Gold team made up of Caitlin Sinclair, Leiston Pickett, Megan Mackay and Darthea Clydsdale (2.11.13) won the gold medal, Canada finished second (4.12.26) and Australia Green just 0.16 of a second behind with Whitney Ireland, Legge, Nicole Mee and Campbell taking the bronze medal.
Topping off a brilliant festival the Australian men's teams finished first and second in the medley relay with Australia Gold (3.46.86) Ben Edmonds, Nicholas Schafer, Phillip Butcher and Kerswell beating Australia Green (3.49.33) Andrew Read, To, Alex Gohari and Justin James making an Aussie quinella in front of bronze medallists Japan (3.53.21).
Combined Team point scores
Australia Gold 284.5
Australia Green 265.5
Canada 256
Japan 181
New Zealand 84
China 77
Chinese Taipei 13