Mollie O’Callaghan returns to St Peters Lutheran College Springfield after gold and bronze medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games
Olympic medallist Mollie O’Callaghan received a hero’s welcome when she returned to school yesterday. She leads Queensland’s youth domination of national swimming teams, with the pick of the crop to be unveiled soon by Swimming Queensland.
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Olympic swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan received a hero’s welcome when she returned to St Peters Lutheran College Springfield with two gold and a bronze medal.
O’Callaghan, the baby of the Australian Dolphins swim team, received rapturous applause as she walked through a guard of honour.
Streamers were unfurled, welcome back signs held aloft and chants of “Go Mollie Go’’ echoed around the campus as O’Callaghan made her way along.
Draped around her neck were two gold medals and one bronze medal, won for her part in the 4x100m, 4x100m medley and 4x200m relay teams.
O’Callaghan, 17, coached by Dean Boxall at St Peters Western, produced world class times as a heat swimmer in each event which contributed to Australia earning pole position in both finals. Her 200m relay time was a world junior record.
Naturally nonchalant, O’Callaghan was a little embarrassed by the public adulation as fellow students lined her route from the car park into the school.
“It is nice to comeback, but I am not a big crowd person,’’ she smiled in reference to the attention. “It is different, but something I will need to get used to if I want to do well in the future.
“But it is nice to get a welcome back and see all my friends I have missed for the last two months.’’
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O’Callaghan said her success in the pool would not have been possible without the support of the school, especiall Maxine Sears (St Peters Western swim coach), Mr Jeremy Lohe (head of sport) and Ms Sarah Johnson (teacher).
O’Callaghan said her relay success had given her an added desire to “see how far I can go’’ in swimming.
Asked for her Olympic highlight, she said: “I think about things here and there, but not too much. But I think probably the 4x200m is the moment which sticks with me a bit, especially breaking the world junior record.’’
O’Callaghan was the youngest of a quartet of Queensland rookies who shone on their Olympic debut.
Her St Peters Western Swim Club teammate Meg Harris, 19, and fellow 19-year-olds Tom Neill and Isaac Cooper – both Rackley Centenary -were success stories.
Harris was in the same relay medal teams as O’Callaghan, while St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace old boy Neill swam Australia to a bronze medal in the 4x200m freestyle.
They are the current young stars of a brilliant crop of Queensland swimmers which includes the extraordinary pair of Ariarne Titmus and Kaylee McKeown, gold medal breaststroke hero Zac Stubblety-Cook, the Campbell sisters, Jack McLoughlin, Chelsea Hodges and veterans Emily Seebohm and Mitch Larkin – among others.
But beneath our Olympics are the next generation of Queensland swim champs, with 35 of 58 places in either the Australian world junior championships or World University Games teams from Queensland.
Queensland Swimming will reveal the best of the best when they host a Queensland v Queensland duel meet on Sept 30-October 1 on the Gold Coast.
Three teams will be selected - all named after three of the state’s greatest freestyle sprinters – Jodie Henry, Libby Trickett (nee Lenton) and Alice Mills.
“Going into the 2004 Olympics games, all three girls were ranked top 10 in the world, then all went on to win gold as part of the women’s 4x100m Freestyle relay,’’ explained Queensland Swimming director of coaching Drew McGregor.
Team selection will be at the conclusion of the 2021 Queensland Short Course Championships.
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The meet will give young Queenslanders like Liz Dekkers (Newmarket Races), Ella Ramsay (St Peters), Sam Short (Rackley), Hannah Casey (Marist College Ashgrove), Tiana Kritzinger (Nudgee College), Semra Olowoniyi (St Peters), Jamie Perkins (Cotton Tree), Taryn Roberts (Rocky City), Flynn Southam (Bond), Kai Taylor (St Peters Western), TSS Aquatic’s Grayson
Bell, Jesse Coleman (Bond University), James Bayliss (Nudgee College), Alex Fahey (Rackley), Tom Hauck (Bond), Joshua Staples (St Peters Western) and Robert Thorpe (St Peters Western), who would have been logical world junior swimming championship selections had they not been called off due to COVID-19, a chance for some competitive swimming.
They are the best of the best at the moment.
Dekkers swam at the 2019 championships in a team containing Neill and O’Callaghan.
Then there Queensland’s selections in the Australian University’s team to consider spearheaded by Jenna Forrester (St Peters) who was on the verge of Olympic selection.
Others in the national University team were Rebecca Jacobson (Rackley) and Bronte Job (Rackley), both 2019 world junior championship finalists, Moesha Johnson (TSS), Mikayla Messer (Nudgee College), Emilie Muir (Griffith University), Mia O’Leary (St Peters Western), Lani Pallister ( Griffith University), Alexandria Perkins (USC Spartans), Laura Taylor (TSS), Jessica Unicomb (Griffith University), Grayson Bell (TSS), Csongor Cellie (Kawana Waters), Ty Hartwell (Chandler), Liam Hunter (Chandler), Mitchell Tinsley (Chandler), Louis Townsend (Rackley) and Kai van Kool (Griffith University).
Then there were members of the Queensland team to compete in a Trans Tasman short course event, which was also cancelled. Those team members were Olivia Collins, Bailey Day, Lucy Dring, Hannah Fredericks, Charlotte Hansen, Eliza King, Rebecca St Vincent, Tahlia Thornton, Sally Vagg, Amelia Weber, Dylan Andrea, Ben Armbruster, Troy Carlson, Conor Daff, Zac George, Alexander Grant, Lucas Humeniuk, Jamie Jack, Bailey Lello, Matthew Magnussen, Zach Maher, Thomas Nowakowski, Harrison Turner, Yannik Zwolsman, Ike Martinez and Mikayla Bird, with St Peters Jaclyn Barclay is another young gun.
McGregor said Queensland “has an abundance of quality athletes, and great depth in all age groups’’
The meet will also cushion the disappointment of the Duel in the Pool – planned to incorporate the best swimmers from around the nation – being cancelled due to COVID-19 in the southern states.
Duel in the Pool was planned for Brisbane in August to also help off-set the cancellation of the world junior swimming championships.
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