Swimming

19 Funkita F-Teamers made their way to the Gold Coast to compete in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, coming away with a massive haul of medals including 4 Gold, 3 Siver and 7 Bronze. Our divers braved strong winds on the "Temple of Terror" and swimmers took to the blocks in both the driving rain and the hot sun to impress spectators from around the world.

The first final of the 2018 Commonwealth Games was the women's 400IM where Team England veteran and F-Team superstar Aimee Willmott was in a tight race for first place, pulling away with 15m to go to win Gold a time of 4:34.90. In the same race, Aussie F-Teamer Blair Evans, despite learning of bad news about her coach in the lead up to the Games, was able to put in an amazing swim in her coach's honor to claim the Bronze medal in a time of 4:38.23. Both F-Teamers also flexed their muscles in the 200IM final with Aimee finishing in 4th and Blair touching the wall right behind her to place 5th.

IM speciallist Abbie Wood joined Blair and Aimee in both the 200 and 400IM final finishing 7th and 6th respectively.

Holly Barratt may have been the oldest swimmer on the Australian team but she had the quickest reaction time by far when she left the wall in her 50m butterfly final. Holly had a cracking race, finishing only .08 behind Cate Campbell to earn a silver medal. Two nights later, Holly Barratt just missed out on another trip to the podium by finishing 4th in the 50m backstroke final with a time of 27.96. Scottish F-Teamer Kathleen Dawson joined Holly in the final, swimming well to finish in 6th place.

F-Teamer golden girl, Lucky Patterson, didn't disappoint her massive fan base, coming away from the Games with 2 Gold medals. In the S9 100m freestyle final she pipped her English competition by only .09 but it was in the S8 50m freestyle final where she cruised to an easy first place finish in a time of 30.14.

Molly Renshaw added to Team England's medal count by smashing out an unreal performance in the 200m breaststroke final to earn a Silver medal spot on the podium.

On the last night of competition we had 8 swimmers take to the pool for their individual finals. In the women's 400m freestyle final our Funkettes dominated the pool with Holly Hibbott claiming Silver, Ellie Faulkner finishing right behind her to secure her third bronze medal and New Zealand F-Teamer Carina Doyle finishing off a great meet finishing 8th.

Charlotte Atkinson came 6th in the 100m butterfly final and 4th in the 200m butterfly final, just missing out on a Bronze medal finishing only .45 seconds behind Emma McKeon. Emily Large made Team England proud securing a spot in the finals of the 200m butterfly, finishing in 7th place in a time of 2:10.96.

Kathryn Greenslade had a packed schedule swimming in 5 events and earning a Bronze in the 4 x 100 medley relay.

Diving

On the first day of competition, Anabelle Smith had a shaky start to the Games in the synchronised 3m springboard final where she and partner Maddison Keeney registered a "no dive." But Anabelle didn't let that rattle her when she returned to the pool on the final day of competition to win bronze in the 3m springboard final.

Coming from behind in a thrilling final, Melissa Wu snatched Gold from Canadian Meaghan Benfeito in the 10m platform competition by just one point. Having competed on the international stage since she was 13, this medal was super sweet being Melissa's first individual Gold medal. "To be able to do this at a home games, in front of all the Aussies supporters and my family in the crowd means a lot." Despite a long list of injuries, Melissa hopes to push on to compete in her fourth Olympic Games.