Newsletter MAY ISSUE 2021 In this edition: Presidents Message: Hear from the Head Coach As the 2020/2021 season draws to a close I would like to Something a bit different thank all our swimmers, coaches and families for their commitment to our program. Not only have we had to Club Championships endure a pandemic but also a big change to our coaching See all the pictures from the great day structure and how strong we have remained!!! Profile on Olympic Legend John Konrads I am so very proud of all our swimmers for staying strong A swimmer described as Mr. Unbeatable with their dryland during lockdowns, all swimmers commitment to entering competitions regardless of how Swimmer Profiles much time out of the pool and the last minute uncertainty Learn a little more about your team mates surrounding whether to travel to Nationals on the Gold Coast! Key dates: It was amazing to host our annual Club Championships with record numbers and I very much look forward to celebrating MLC SC Meet - 12th June everyone's achievements at Presentation Night this year. Presentation Night - 19th June MLC Long Course Meet - TBA A very big thank you to everyone so very very proud of you MLC 2022 Long Course Meet - 5th February all! Katrina Schlicht All aboard - have you booked your ticket for the ►Head Coach Message 2021 Annual Dinner and Presentation Night Something a bit different. FLIGHT DESTINATION GATE FLIGHT It has now been seven weeks since Age Nationals, and six since Open MLC2021 HOLIDAY OF YOUR DREAMS 1906 MLC2021 Nationals. THE COMMITTEE OF MLC AQUATIC INVITES This year as we returned to training after our major meets, the PLEASE BOOK BY Performance and National squads tried something a bit different. SWIMMERS, PARENTS AND CARERS TO THE 2021 12/06/2021 Swimming is one of a very small number of sports which don’t Annual Dinner & Presentation Night www.trybooking.com/BROSV have an “off-season”. Most competitive swimmers train year-round DATE TIME DESTINATION (with the exception of last year’s lockdowns) and rarely have a 19/06/2021 6:30 PM Betty Jackson Hall, Methodist Ladies College ENQUIRIES proper extended break to reset, rejuvenate, and have a break from Kate Bowden 0427 777 919 Dress: 2021 Around the World chlorine. Cost: $30 per person This year our Performance and National squads did the Includes Gourmet carvery, desert and for swimmers also pre dinner snacks and soft drink / water unthinkable! We had several sessions a week where we didn’t get in the water at all, and several more sessions where we were only in BYO: Pre dinner nibbles for adults at your table, drinks and glasses the water for an hour. With three spin sessions a week, plus three Swimmers under the age of 15 are to be accompanied by an adult or have a nominated parent attending Bobby Folan gym sessions our water time has been greatly reduced over the last month. New MLC Swimming Members This was a big shift for some of our more seasoned swimmers and We would like to extend a warm welcome to our recent new members: the goal of the last few weeks has been to be fitter, stronger and more athletic following our cross-training/gym/ dryland focus. The small amount of time that we have been in the water has been spent working on skills, with > Charlie Tanner > Chan Charoensuk underwater work being our major focus. > Amelia Leronimo > Lily Koch General fitness and swimming fitness are two very different things, and now that we have spent a significant amount > Sophie Hall > Bolin Chen of time focusing on general fitness, we will transition to work on our swimming fitness over the next month as we > Fraser Blair > Alice Pahan start our winter season. We hope that all of our Performance and National squad swimmers have enjoyed their > Michael Charalambous > Sophie Jacka change of pace – those hill climbs and grinds will serve you well when we finally rest our legs at the end of the season. > Lucy Sadler > Nedd Betts > > Once we see the results of trying something a bit different, we will look at ways to filter down things that we learn to Grace Cox Isabella Paddle our other squads next season. In the meantime, it has been great to see our Development and Junior squads working > Eliza Zhang hard in the water, and we hope to see more of the same over the short course season. Bobby MLC Aquatic Winter Competitions Calendar 2021 *Current as of May 2021 ‐ Subject to Change* National National National Sprint Date Competition Venue Closing Date State Squad Development Junior Squad Performance Squad & Senior State Coaching Team MLC Aquatic Committee: Squad Committee May 2021 Representatives: 8 May 2021 MLC Club Championships Camberwell Grammar 5/05/2021 YES YES YES YES YES YES June 2021 Head Coach /Performance President - Katrina Schlicht 6 June 2021 Ringwood Encouragement Meet Aquanation 1/06/2021 NO NO NO NO YES YES Squad - Bobby Folan Vice President - Stephen Maloney Performance Squad - Xin Liu 12 June 2021 MLC SC Meet MSAC Opens 12/5 YES YES YES YES YES YES 12‐17 June 2021 Australian Trials Adelaide, SA Individual Individual Individual NO NO NO Assistant Head Coach /National Treasurer - David Hay National Squad - Natalie Hood 26 June 2021 Cheltenham Encouragement Meet Waves Leisure Centre 18/06/2021 NO NO NO NO YES YES July 2021 Squad- Jayden Brian Secretary - Sharon Brian & Sam National Sprints and Senior 10 July 2021 Firbank Aquastars Meet MSAC 4/07/2021 YES YES YES YES YES YES National Sprints , Senior and MacKenzie State - David O’Keefe 18 July 2021 Surrey Park SC Meet MSAC ASAP * 800/1500 ** 800/1500 ** 800/1500 * NO NO NO 25 July 2021 Northcote SC Qualifying Meet MSAC 20/07/2021 YES YES YES YES YES YES State Squad - Josh McIntyre Registrar - Deb Patterson State Squad - Ann McAllister August 2021 Development and Junior Squads Social Coordinator - Kate Bowden Development and Junior Squad - 7‐8 August 2021 Vic Metro SC Meet MSAC TBA YES YES YES YES Qualified Qualified 27‐29 August 2021 Vic Age SC Champs MSAC TBA YES YES YES YES Qualified NO - Zoe Scherret Uniforms - Emma Subramaniam Graham French September 2021 11‐12 September 2021 Vic Open SC Meet MSAC TBA YES * YES ** Qualified ** Qualified * NO NO Newsletter - Craig Brown 11 September 2021 Ballarat LC Ballarat Aquatic Centre TBA NO * YES ** YES ** YES * NO NO * Check with squad coach * 2 / MLC AQUATIC NEWSLETTER MLC AQUATIC NEWSLETTer / 3 Saturday 8th May saw a flurry of swimming activity at the Camberwell Boys School pool. Swimmers aged 8 and above were ready to race. Our younger swimmers were adopted by our National and Performance swimmers and taken on the wild ride of meet and greet and then warm up with the big guns. You could see it in the eyes of our younger swimmers what an experience this was going to be. Many thanks to our coaches and committee for pulling this event together and making an impact on each swimmer. Further thanks go to our leadership swimmers for leading by example and showing us why MLC Aquatic is such a great club to be part of. Take a look at some of the photos from the day: 4 / MLC AQUATIC NEWSLETTER MLC AQUATIC NEWSLETTer / 5 Olympic Gold Medal Swimming Legend ► Konrads was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985. John Konrads ► In 2000, he received an Australian Sports Medal Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer John Konrads has “Once an Olympian, always an Olympian. That was John Konrads. My sincere condolences to John’s wife Mikki, sister Ilsa and the entire been described as “Mr Unbeatable” as Australian swimming Konrads family,” remembers one of its greatest ever champions, following his death on the Sunshine Coast yesterday. And Olympic historian, the late Harry Gordon reflected on the decision to select Konrads as an emergency on the 1956 Olympic Article by IAN HANSON - OCEANIA CORRESPONDENT - 26 April 2021 Team, just four months before his 14th birthday, when he wrote: Konrads, the 1960 Olympic champion in the 1500m freestyle, and a “The selection of John Konrads was in fact a fine example of enlightened extravagance. From the start it was known that he would not prolific world record holder, passed away in Noosa Hospital after a be required to swim. Several legs would have to break for that to happen. His task was to absorb, to hang around with heroes, to be an long illness. He was 78. investment for the future – and he obliged in a wide-eyed kind of way.” Along with sister Ilsa Konrads, herself a star-studded teenage world Taking delivery of the Olympic tracksuit was close to the biggest event of my life. And just to be on the same beater, Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, team as people like Dawn Fraser and Jon Henricks! together they became known as the “Konrads kids” after legendary coach Don Talbot discovered them at Revesby Primary School in 1952. Konrads himself would also reflect on this many years later, saying: “The excitement was fantastic. I remember trying to talk Latvian to a huge, 7ft 4in guy on the Soviet basketball team. And it was good blooding. Olympics can be Gary Winram, a team mate of Konrads from the 1956 Melbourne overpowering, and I had this great chance to be inside them, at a very impressionable age. I watched Murray Rose win gold medals, and I Olympics, where Konrads at just 13 was selected as an began to target myself for Rome.” emergency (for experience) and from the 1958 Commonwealth “He was an amazing swimmer and a great competitor who set Games in Cardiff, described the Latvian-born migrant boy as one of Konrads was born in Riga, Latvia on May 21, 1942, when that city was under German occupation.