Broome rises to the challenge to win top honours in the Pilbara Championships

Competitors from Broome have been crowned the top swimmers in the North West after dominating the Pilbara Championships in Karratha last month. The annual contest was held at the Karratha Leisureplex on November 26-28 and saw 218 participants from 10 regional towns including Broome, Carnarvon, Exmouth, Port Hedland and Karratha challenge for the right to be named Pilbara champs. Tom Price, Newman, Pannawonica, Paraburdoo, Perth and Wickham also sent swimmers to the meet. Some 788 personal best times were scored, an improvement of 53 per cent compared to last year. Broome finished the tournament in first place on 2483 points with its 30 athletes completing 252 swims and recording 140 personal bests. In second place was Karratha with 166 personal bests and a total score of 1941 followed closely by Exmouth with 1632 points and 129 PB’s. Tom Price came home in fourth place with 1206.5 points, Carnarvon trailing with 799 points and Port Hedland rounding out the top six just 18 points back with 781. Trophies called “closest to or better than State record” were also given to the top six individual swimmers across the meet with Carnarvon’s Jessica Louw being awarded the 50m freestyle female title with a time of 30.49sec. Port Hedland’s Jaymes Roser claimed the male 50m freestyle with 26.20, while the 100m female freestyle went to Karratha’s Abby Smith with 1min. 07.55sec. The male 100m freestyle trophy went to Broome’s Sean Campbell and Smith took out the female 200m. Roser also claimed the 200m individual medley award with a time of 2.27.73.