Olympics inspire Top End swimmers to train harder and swim faster to follow their own dreams

The Olympics captures the imagination of aspiring athletes, including Darwin swimmers with many being real chances of one day stepping onto the world’s biggest stage.

THE Olympics captures the imagination of aspiring athletes, including Darwin swimmers with many being real chances of one day stepping onto the world’s biggest stage.

Andrew and Rosanna Materazzo are two of those swimmers with both impressing on the national stage and with the Olympics on once again they’re training harder than ever to realise their dream.

There's plenty of hype ahead of the Olympics for Darwin's young swimmers. Siblings Andrew and Rosanna Materazzo are pictured warming up at the Casuarina Pool. Picture: Che Chorley

“The Olympics is so inspiring. It’s helped us realise our dream and showed us what we can do if we train hard,” Andrew, 15, said.

“People see Darwin and think it’s a small place but we we’ve seen people from Darwin perform and make it to a really high level.”

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Top End swimmers have had no shortage of motivation in the past year with Olympian Emily Seebohm holding clinics and the formation of a swimming hub in Darwin.

“It’s just extra motivation for us. It makes us want to go and swim faster times and train even harder,” Rosanna, 17, said.

Joshua Staples is another Darwinite that could make it to the big stage having recently been named on the Australian Junior Swim team.