Medal Haul for Marni Burger & Ashleigh Smart
Just weeks after returning home from a busy Maccabiah program, sixteen year old Marni Burger was back in the competition pool. Selected to represent Victoria as a member of the “Target 2012” Squad, Burger competed in eight events at the 2009 Queensland Short Course Championships. The teenager came away with one silver medal (100m butterfly) and four bronze (50m and 200m fly and the 100m and 200m freestyle) from the Championships held at the Chandler Aquatic Centre.
Burger swam personal best times in the 50m fly (28.69), 100m individual medley (1:06.57) to finish fourth, the 200m fly (2:16.85) and the 50m backstroke where she surprised herself with a 30.70 to place fifth.
Backing up only a week later, Burger swam faster again to win four gold, one silver and one bronze at the 2009 Victorian Age Short Course Championships. The Ian Pope-coached swimmer swam personal best times in all her events including the 100m fly (1:02.01), 200m fly (2:16.19), 100m freestyle (57.82) and the 200m freestyle (2:04.13) to secure gold in both the fly and freestyle doubles. The silver (50m freestyle - 26.57) and the bronze (100m backstroke - 1:05.05) rounded out a busy couple of months for the Maccabi/Melbourne Vicentre swimmer.
Fellow Maccabiah team mate, Ashleigh Smart 16, won bronze in the 200m freestyle in a personal best time of 2:09.18. Smart also finished in the top ten in her age group in the 200m backstroke (2:24.48), 50m (28.13) and 100m freestyle (1:00.42) and the 100m butterfly (1:07.74).
Meanwhile the rest of the Victorian Maccabiah swimmers finished strongly with Josh Balsim placing 5th in the 16 years 100m butterfly in a personal best time of 59.14, Avi Bart placing 6th and 7th respectively in the 14 years 100m freestyle (56.39) and the 100m butterfly (1:02.83) and Julian Kowal going 25.80 for the 50m freestyle and 56.96 for the 100m freestyle in the fifteen years age group.
The swimmers are now commencing preparations for the long course season which commences in October and culminates in the 2010 Australian Age Championships to be held in NSW in April next year. This meet will be preceded by the 2010 Victorian Age and Open Championships in January and the 2010 Australian Championships in March.
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