WAIS Swimmer Full Throssell Ahead

And the 15 year-old City of Perth club member proved she has a heart the size to match after a three gold, two silver and two bronze campaign reinforced her reputation as one of Australia’s best young talents. A view justified after Throssell was named in Swimming Australia’s Junior All Stars Team.

Back in Perth, Throssell rated her swim in the 100m fly on the final night of competition as her fondest moment of the meet. Despite a gruelling schedule that had seen her in action across the six day carnival, she produced a massive last ditch effort to claim gold and set a memorable new milestone.

“Prior to the heat I had a 1:01 personal best, so the high 1:02 in qualifying was nothing special,” Throssell explained.

“I knew this was going to be an important swim, so I tried to just stay relaxed and focussed. The first 50 of the race felt smooth and controlled, but my turn was not great, and I came up half a body length behind Vanessa Puhlmann. From there, I increased my stroke rate and went for broke, passing her in the last 10 metres. When I looked up at the scoreboard I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face, 1:00.24, a huge PB,” she said.

“After racing the last final in a heavy six day program, to pull out that time and a gold medal was really special.”

Throssell’s success was part of an eleven medal haul for City of Perth coach Ian Mills, who Throssell explained along with head coach Matt Magee had taught her the value of hard work in training.

“Millsy and Matt Magee have taught me not to compromise my training to achieve short- term goals,” she revealed. “Their belief is to give me a strong base of strokes, and distances along with life- skills, that will serve me well in the future.”

And speaking of future, Throssell’s appears bright, with the young gun having plenty to build towards for the remainder of 2011.

“It’s shaping up to be a pretty busy year,” she admitted.

“There’ll be some big blocks of training, National Short course in just over two months as well as camps and hopefully off to World Junior Champs or Youth Commonwealth Games.”