Logan City rookie swim Mollie O’Callaghan has positioned herself for tilt at Tokyo’s Olympic Games

Logan City schoolgirl Mollie O’Callaghan has positioned herself for a tilt at making the Australian Dolphins swimming team at next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games athletes.

Logan City schoolgirl Mollie O’Callaghan has positioned herself for a tilt at making the Australian Dolphins swimming team at next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.

Unknown beyond swimming devotees, O’Callaghan and another Queensland schoolgirl, Racers’ butterfly exponent Elizabeth Dekkers and Rackley’s Tom Neill, could be the rookies in the national swim squad if they maintain their upward trajectory once training and competition ramps up following the easing of the COVID-19 crisis.

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Greenbank resident O’Callaghan, a year 11 student at St Peters Lutheran College Springfield campus, has moved toward the top of the “one to watch list’’ chasing freestyle sprint queens Cate Campbell and Emma McKeon, and third ranked Maddie Wilson who are Australia’s top three 50m and 100m female sprinters.

Mollie O'Callaghan of St Peters Lutheran College with Tahlia Thornton (St Margaret’s) at the QGSSSA swim meet. The pair were team mates at the world junior swimming championships.

Now ranked No. 4 behind that trio, O’Callaghan was in a position to push hard for a relay berth in the hotly contested sprint field.

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McKeon and Campbell will be the top two, but the Greenbank State School past student is improving with more race experience and volume of training under her belt.

What has also been noted is O’Callaghan’s ability to rise to the occasion, as she did at last year’s world junior swimming championships in Budapest when she produced four personal best times while placing fourth in her four individual events.

Mollie O'Callaghan doing backstroke at last year’s world juniors. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

So impressive is her ability to race that St Peters Western coach Dean Boxall likens her to his former world champion Mitch Larkin, a John Paul College old boy.

O’Callaghan is so dominate in the junior age group, that last week she received a letter from Swimming Australia stating had their been a team picked for the Junior Pan Pacs in Hawaii as intended prior to the COVID-19 crisis, she would have been in four individual events –

50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke.

“So well done to you, you have the ability and skills to represent your country but for this year unfortunately not the opportunity to do so,’’ said the letter which was jointly signed by

Glenn Beringen, the National Youth Coach and Jamie Salter, the general-manager of Performance Pathway.

St Peters Lutheran College student Mollie O'Callaghan with a swag of medals last year. (AAP Image/Renae Droop)

Aside from the training expertise of Boxall and his intense program, O’Callaghan also benefits from the competitive environment at St Peters Western.

She trains with senior Australian swimmers like Ariarne Titmus, Larkin, Clyde Lewis, Abbey Harkin and Jack Cartwright, but also finds competition from within her friendship group.

Her school mate at St Peter Lutheran College Springfield campus Ella Ramsay, although only in year 10, has now broken into the top 10 rankings Australia wide in five events, including the 100m and 200m freestyle which O’Callaghan swims.