Swimming

Swimming

Churchie’s Barry McCart Aquatic Centre, with three heated pools—a six-lane 50-metre pool, an eight-lane 25-metre pool and a 13-metre covered teaching pool—stands alone as one of the best school training centres in the country.

Numerous Churchie students have gone on to enjoy national and international success as swimmers, including:

StePHen holland

the original ‘Superfish’ and world record-holder during the 1970s

Regan Harrison

the winner of two medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and a member of the 2004 Athens Olympics team

Jordan Merrilies

a member of the 2018 World Short Course Championship team


Zac Stubblety-Cook

Olympic gold medalist (Tokyo 2020) and world record holder in the long course 200 metre breaststroke.

Several boys have furthered their swimming overseas with scholarships to American universities.

Churchie has continued to perform strongly throughout the GPS competition and were again victorious in 2014.

The Junior GPS Swimming competition also commenced in 2014, with our junior swimmers moving across from the CIC competition. In the inaugural year of this competition, Churchie was victorious, winning both Junior and Senior competitions. We have continued to perform strongly in this competition winning on a further two occasions.

The Churchie Swim Club provides boys, their siblings and the outside community with the ability to train and compete all year round. The club is strong, finishing twice in the Top 10 at the Australian Age Swimming Championships, but catering for all levels of competition is our strength.

Visit Churchie Aquatics for further information:

When Churchie moved to East Brisbane, as Norman Creek bordered the property, all boys were expected to learn to swim.

By 1918 the Viking test had been extended to about 120 yards, once across Norman Creek and back again. Once the student could swim four times back and forth across Norman Creek, they became a ‘Pocket King’.

By 1920 Churchie had its first swimming pool: a cement box by the side of Norman Creek, which was 30 feet square and three to five feet deep connected by a pipe to the creek.

In 1936 the 25-metre pool was opened. It had no filtration and had to be cleaned out every twenty days. The pool was closed in 2009 and became a water reservoir. The 50-metre pool was built in 1971 and served the school until 2009, when the area was redeveloped as The Barry McCart Aquatic Centre, incorporating the original 50-metre pool. The new centre was opened in October 2010 and sits on the school grounds opposite the Main Oval.

The GPS competition began in 1918. Churchie won its first race in 1923 and waited a decade for its first premiership in 1930. Then there were the golden years of swimming during the 1940s when the School won nine premierships. In the 1960s Churchie won six consecutive titles from 1960 to 1965. The School has been the championship school on twenty-one occasions. This has not been exceeded by any other school in the GPS competition.

Swim Team 1960

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