POST 2010 WORLDS DOWN SYNDROME SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Phoebe achieved 10 gold medals:
Individual gold medals in the 50m Breaststroke, 100m Breaststroke, 200m Breaststroke, 50m Backstroke, 100m Backstroke, 100m Individual Medley and the 200m Individual Medley
Relay gold medals in Female 4×50 Freestyle Relay, Female 4×50 Medley Relay and the 4×100 Medley Relay.
Phoebe swam World Records in the 50m Backstroke, the 100m Backstroke (heats and final), the 100m Backstroke and the 200m Breaststroke. All three relays were also World Records.
Phoebe was named Top Female of the meet as a result of her outstanding performances.
Phoebe’s performance is a credit to her dedication, hard work, self discipline and willingness to perfect her technique.
Phoebe has been doing four to five swim sessions and two gym sessions per week as part of her preparation. She also completed a block of racing which enabled us to refine her technical skills.
For further information please contact her Coach, John Beckworth (0417522046)
Phoebe was first a member of the Australian Down Syndrome Swimming Team in 2008 and travelled to Portugal for the 4th Down Syndrome World Swimming Championships. Despite being the youngest team member of the team she performed extremely well and gained her first world gold medals and world records.
Since then, under her coach John Beckworth at the Geelong Swimming Club she has increased her training schedule to 5 sessions per week and added a couple of gym sessions as well.
Her 4 morning sessions required her to rise at 5.10 am ready to swim at 5.45am in Geelong. Whilst at times it was difficult for us to maintain this commitment, her bounce and enthusiasm at that hour meant we could only keep going. Her ability to jump out of bed with nothing said other than “good morning” was an inspiration. She would eat her breakfast in the car off a tray in the dark each time and manage her affairs in order to arrive at school on time.
To attend her gym sessions, Phoebe would walk there after school and when she returned home, over 12 hours since leaving, she would organize herself entirely and repeat it all again the next day. She simply loved training and competing. Her devotion and commitment to her training and coach John Beckworth meant she thrived on improving her techniques and her swimming times.
The Geelong Swimming Club have encouraged her all the way and have created an environment to aid her enthusiasm. She participated in many swimming meets around Victoria and attended two Australian Team training camps in Noosa in the lead up to Taiwan.
In Taiwan, Phoebe had a huge program and we were constantly amazed at her poise and ability to keep on performing at such a level. Her ability to handle the hot, humid, busy and hectic schedule was an inspiration. As spectators we just kept saying to ourselves that we couldn’t believe her performances. She just kept exceeding our expectations. As well, the mateship, cohesiveness, organization and talent of the Australian Team stood out and resulted in Australia easily winning the overall world championship.
To say we are proud of Phoebe is a complete understatement! It was truly an awesome achievement and from our point of view, the work involved and necessary commitment is a very small price to pay for the happiness and success we have seen our daughter achieve.
Regards, Libby and David Mitchell