As is the tradition, the annual swimming carnival is the first big event for the new school year and, as it is the last one for the year 12 students, it’s an opportunity to have a bit of a muck around.

For the event, held on Wednesday February 6 at the Gloucester Swimming Pool, each student was encouraged to dress up in their house colours, and for the HSC students, it was all about the dress up bit. 

There were plenty of colourful tutus and gigantic blow up floaties and even a few kiddie swimming pools.

All the students took advantage of the cool water, with the high temperatures seeing all of them in the pool at one point or another. But despite the playful atmosphere, there were plenty of racing to be had, titles to be won and records to be broken.

Year eight student, Emily Kearney broke two school records, the 50 metre freestyle and the 50 metre backstroke, which were the same records she broke last year.

At the end of the day, the top seven fastest 50 metre freestyle swimmers from the day, across all years, compete in the Champion of Champions event. Harry Moore won the men’s with Bailey Whitby coming second, and Emily Kearney won the women’s with Sarah Schiffman as runner up.

Then it was onto a bit of fun, with each house being able to choose up to two male and two female swimmers to take part in the Ironman competition, which sees each competitor blow up a balloon, swim 50 metres backstroke with the balloon held in their teeth, pop the balloon before finding their number in the wadding pool. Then they had to do 10 sit ups before returning to the main pool to swim 50 metres freestyle with a small cone shaped marker on their heads, finishing off with a final 50 metres of breaststroke. The winners were Dylan Schultz and Isabella Yates and the runners up were Jake Moulds and Charlotte Maslen.

The rest of the winner were:

Male Champion: Zac Schafer (12 yrs), Ryan Latimore (13 yrs), Caiden Wakefield (14 yrs), Blake Murray (15 yrs), Aiden Hawkins/Harrison Moore (16 yrs), Dylan Schultz (17+ yrs)

Male Runner Up: Dylan Siely (12 yrs), Nicholas Edwards (13 yrs), Charles Tonks (14 yrs), Issac McClure (15 yrs), Callum Howard (17+ yrs)

Female Champion: Mackenzie Schafer (12 yrs), Taleah Higgins (13 yrs), Emily Kearney (14 yrs), Sarah Redman (15 yrs), Amy Shultz (16 yrs), Paula Edwards (17+ yrs)

Female Runner Up: Abbigale Sterling (12 yrs), Bonnie Tonks (13 yrs), Jorja Beard (14 yrs), Georgia Schultz (15 yrs), Sarah Schiffman (16 yrs), Charlotte Maslen (17+ yrs)

Winning house: Mograni.