Rising Star: Swimmer takes November's award

Competing in local, State and national competitions, winning medals and breaking records is normal for 15-year-old swimmer Alex Griffiths, who has taken out November’s Rising Sports Star Award.

The Busselton Freight Service Award was a surprise for Alex, who had no idea he had been nominated by staff at his school, Georgiana Molloy Anglican School.

“I was pretty excited and shocked, but it just proved to me that all the hard work (has) paid off,” he said.

The Busselton swimmer has been training and swimming competitively for seven years, and travels around WA and Australia 15 to 20 times a year to attend swim meets.

He holds Bunbury Swimming Club and WA Country records, and was recently awarded a Department of Sport and Recreation Smarter than Smoking country scholarship to help him access the best training, competitions and facilities to improve his performance.

Alex said his biggest achievement so far was representing WA at the 2011 Australian Age Championships in Adelaide, where he competed in the under-16 boys 4x100m relay team.

He said his parents, who drive him to Bunbury six times a week for training, were instrumental to his success.

“They’re very supportive, especially my dad. He’s a swimming coach and he helps me with my technique and gets me through some of the hard times, at times when I’ve struggled,” he said.

Alex has qualified for seven events at the 2012 State Age Championships, to be held in Perth in January,

but he said his main goal was to qualify for one or more individual events at the national titles.

“I’m getting there slowly, but it just takes a lot of hard work,” he said.

Alex said he hoped to qualify in his favoured events, the 50m freestyle and 100m breaststroke.

As the winner of the Busselton Freight Service Rising Sports Star Award, Alex was awarded $200 prize money to help with sports-associated costs, and said he would use it to buy new equipment and bathers.

He thanked GMAS’s co-curricular coordinator Val Best for nominating him, and his parents and swimming coach Nick “Ciffa” Ciffolilli.

The Rising Sports Star is supported by the Busselton Dunsborough Times.

Contact editor@bdtimes.com.au for a nomination form or visit our Queen Street office.