Courtesy of Gold Coast Bulletin
28.06.2025
There’s something special in the water at Bond University.
Next month’s World Aquatics Championships will feature 16 swimmers and two coaches from Bond and the Bull Sharks swimming squad.
A program-record four student-athletes – Hancock Prospecting Swimming Excellence Scholarship recipients Flynn Southam, Jesse Coleman, Milla Jansen and Hannah Casey – and coach Chris Mooney have made the Dolphins squad for Singapore.
Another 10 international athletes, who live and train at Bond on World Aquatics Scholarships, will compete for their home countries. Bond’s director of swimming Kyle Samuelson has been appointed by World Aquatics to accompany these athletes as coach.
This squad includes Bond students Marina Abu Shamaleh and Paris Olympian Lani Connolly. Fellow Bondies Elijah Winnington and Max Giuliani, who study at Bond on the Hancock Prospecting Swimming Excellence Scholarship, have also made the Dolphins squad.
Samuelson said the results were the culmination of years of steady progress. “This is the best outcome we’ve ever had at trials,” he said. “To have that many swimmers on the Dolphins team and a coach selected as well, and to be able to help our World Aquatics athletes make consistent improvements – it’s incredibly special.”
For Olympian Southam, who snared medals in the 4x100m and 4x200m relays in Paris, the trials marked a breakthrough in the individual events. “He’s worked really hard at putting together the 50m, 100m and 200m at the same meet and to post PBs in all three events is fantastic,” Samuelson said. “Someone with Flynn’s ability at his age – he’s got a big future.”
Hannah Casey produced one of the performances of the meet to qualify in the 200m freestyle. “She hadn’t been under 1:58 in two years,” Samuelson said.
“Then she went 1:57.05 and backed that up with a 1:56.09 – a massive improvement.
“She had to adjust to a new program, study, living out of home, and about a year ago, we just said, ‘You’ve got to dig in and back it’.”
Jansen, who made her senior team debut at the 2022 World Short Course Championships, overcame a shoulder injury to qualify again.
Olympian Ben Armbruster, Josh Collett and Layla Day were selected to the Australia A team.
Coach Mooney said the outcome at trials reflected four years of planning.
“To see it accumulate into those results is reassuring that we selected the right athletes and we’ve selected the right staff,” he said.
“Even though we’ve got our eye on 2028, I think the big plan is 2032 – we don’t want to get our arses handed to us in our own country.”
