Caitlin Huell has raised the bar on her potential after an incredible showing at the ACT Short Course Swimming Championships.
Huell was in the zone in Canberra, claiming four gold medals and clocking seven personal best times.
The Maribyrnong Sports Academy student touched the wall first in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly.
Huell takes tremendous confidence out of her performances in the nation’s capital.
“It just lets me know that I’m actually improving in my swimming,” she told Star Weekly.
“It helps motivate myself even more next time to beat my previous PB.
“It felt really good after I finished it all, and my coaches were happy with my results.
“It just felt awesome.”
Huell was one of a number of Maribyrnong swimmers to bring home medals. Georgia Frendo won gold in the 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly, along with four PBs, Grace Honan took out gold in the 200m breaststroke and bronze in the 100m breaststroke, to go with two PBs, Charles Lockley won gold in the 100m breaststroke, and Dan Americo clocked four PBs.
Huell puts Maribyrnong’s collective success down to the programs run at the college.
“We have this program called the athlete development program,” she said.
“It just helps us students in the sports academy develop our muscles – we do weights at school, we do a recovery session one day, the next day we’ll do core, so we change it up and do a bit of variety.”
Huell has also been hard at training at her home club, Wyndham Sharks.
The early-rising Point Cook resident –
she’s at the pool at 5.15am – credits coach Peter Botheras for a lift in her training intensity.
“He’s been pushing me a lot harder, so I guess that helped a lot.” The year nine student was even more inspired watching the Australian team in action during the Olympic Games.
“My life pretty much revolves around swimming at the moment,” she said. “I’d hope to make it to the Commonwealth Games trials – I’ll try to get more national qualifying times.”
