As comfortable in the water as she is out of it, 13-year-old Edie Keightley has loved swimming as long as she can remember. This week she will travel out of state to compete against some of the best young swimmers in Australia.
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A result of her dedication and tutelage under Mick O'Sullivan from Mudgee Indoor Swimming Club, Edie has qualified for the upcoming National Age Championships in Adelaide. Edie swims breaststroke, one of the more technical and difficult strokes a competing swimmer can compete in. She will compete for glory in the 50m, 100m, and 200m breaststroke events.
"I've never done nationals before, but I've done things like state [events]," she said.
"I'm not really nervous. I'm more excited. Like, it's so cool that I get to go all the way to Adelaide, but I do get nervous for the longer ones a little bit, like the 200m because I haven't really been doing it for that long."
Swimming can appear like a solitary sport, a far cry from team-oriented competitions like netball or footy, but Edie said her favourite aspect of the sport are the friends she's made while training and who support each other at meets and during competitions.
"They've got a really great group of kids that do travel away together. And so she likes that social aspect and everybody's really supportive of each other," Edie's mother Jasmine Williams said.
Following Christmas, Edie trains once a day, six days a week with Mick O'Sullivan and in the lead up the holiday she trains twice a day, six days a week, a tough regimen but one that Edie embraces.
"He [Mick] is really good. It's tough. Like we do hard training. And we have girls around my age that do it with me, which is really good," she said.
"He does so much for us, he's always doing stuff around the pool. And he's doing lessons, like all afternoon and then with us until eight o'clock," she said.
With the Short Street location that houses the indoor pool listed for sale, Mick will eventually wind down the business, leaving Mudgee with no suitable indoor pool facilities until council completes construction on a planned indoor pool.
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