By JARROD POTTER
EVEN with the rigours of an expanded repertoire and recovering from dual knee injuries did not stop Nick Galileos from taking his spot atop the swimming podium.
Galileos, 16, from Dandenong, swam strongly at the opening meet of the summer swimming season – the Swimming Victoria Short Course Age Championships – with a new found passion.
The Casey TigerSharks dynamo – who has starred in short and middle distance racing throughout his time at the state level – amazed the field with a scintillating 16.04.68 minutes 1500m for the under 15-18 race.
His efforts were strong enough to earn him the gold – showing the TigerSharks’ newly acquired might in the distance events.
“I started my state championships with the 1500m freestyle – coming back from injury it was a bit of an unknown how I was going to go, but to win that was pretty good,” Galileos said.
“I suppose I did the 1500m through training really – I was going alright at training with all the distance works so I thought I might give it a crack.”
But it could have been completely different season for the Dandy dynamo – who had been derailed by knee problems on each leg.
“Was just my knee – knee injuries, had one late last year then one earlier this year on different knees,” Galileos said.
“One was for three weeks and the other was about two, so I was out of the water for about five weeks.”
Galileos didn’t let the knees slow his podium progress at the age championships, though, as he also picked up third in the 200m and 400m freestyle events as well as the 200m under-16 boys butterfly.
“Four hundred free – bronze in the 18 and unders – then also bronze in the 200m free and 200m butterfly,” Galileos said.
“Four out of four podiums from all my swims so that was really good, too.”
He backed up his 1500m gold medal swim in the age championships with second at the open short course championships in the 15-18 men’s event, third in the 200m butterfly and 400m freestyle.
The summer swimming season has already been hectic for Galileos as he the former National age champion was one of the TigerSharks added to Swimming Victoria’s Performance Squad, which went into camp in July for the Victorian Development Program.
