BREAKING 22 records during a four-day swim meet has to be a record in its own right.
It is a prestigious honour that belongs to WAIS swimmer and Padbury resident Blair Evans (18), who stormed the state senior short course championships held from July 4 to 7 at Challenge Stadium.
Evans continued a stellar year in the pool, smashing six WA all-comers, six WA all-time and 10 WA residential records on her way to claiming five gold medals at the meet.
She took out titles in the 200m backstroke, 200m butterfly, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and 400m individual medley, and she is not stopping there.
Evans said she surprised even herself with her success.
“Coming off a hard week of training, it was interesting to get in the pool and see how fast I could go and the results were a good indication for the upcoming world championships in Rome,” she said.
“I really just wanted to go in to the competition and get a good week of racing. It was definitely a surprise to set all those records.”
Tomorrow, Evans will travel to Manchester where she will take part in a week-long staging camp before she heads to Rome to compete at the FINA World Swimming Championships from July 19 to August 2 as part of the 41-member Australian Dolphins team.
It is just another competition in what has been an eventful year for the 2009 World Championships team member, who collected a Swimmers’ Swimmer of the Year award, decided by a peer vote, at Swimming WA’s annual awards.
After the FINA championships, Evans will travel to Tasmania for the National Short Course Championships.