In November 2022, Noosa Today featured the then two teenage champion swimmers Killian Carrel and Tom Raymond who swam at the FINA Marathon Swim World Cup Series in Israel. At the Australian Open Water Championships in Adelaide the previous March, both swimmers dominated the Junior (19 yrs) Championships, coming 1st and 2nd, respectively.
Tom and Killian benefitted greatly from their overseas experience and competed at the 2025 Australian Open Water Championship at the Busselton Jetty in WA in late January. Noosa swimmers dominated the Open Men’s event. There were five swimmers with the Noosa Club who are, or were coached by John (JR) Rodgers and Olympian Kareena Lee: Tom, Kilian and his younger brother Nolan Carrell, Dylan Murphy, and 2024 Paris Olympian Nick Sloman. Nick moved to Victoria post-Paris Olympic Games and now swims for the Melbourne Vicentre Swimming club (MVC).
The results of the race were: 1st Kyle Lee (NCT: 1:50:34.34); 2nd Thomas Raymond (Noosa: 1:50:34.39); 3rd Nick Sloman (MVC: 1:50.57.30); 4th Dylan Murphy (Noosa: 1:51:05.30);13th Kilian Carrel (Noosa: 1:56:07.00); Nolan Carrel (Noosa: 1:58:56.20).
It is difficult to believe that the difference between Kyle Lee’s time as winner and Tom’s second-place over a 10km ocean swim was merely .05 seconds. As can be seen in the photograph taken a few metres from the finish, they were so close! It is remarkable that Kyle, who swims for the North Coast Swimming club in Karrinyup in Western Australia, won by only a ‘touch’ after a 10km ocean swim.
Olympic and Commonwealth Games coach John Rodgers and wife Jenny appreciated the Busselton Jetty, which is a Western Australian icon at 1.8kms in length making it the longest wooden piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. Standing on the Jetty, they were above the swimmers at the start they had a ‘birds-eye-view and were amazed at the amount of power and splash the swimmers generated at the starters’ gun. Jenny’s photographs have captured that perspective at the start and the closeness of the finish.
JR, the Noosa Aquatic Centre’s Elite Swim Coach for the past 12 years, was named Swim Australia’s Open Water Program Coach of the Year for 2024. He coached his now fellow-coach Kareena Lee who won the Bronze medal in the 10km Olympic Marathon Swim at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. JR was thrilled with the efforts of his four young male athletes. His wife Jenny, who accompanied JR to Busselton and photographed much of the two-day competition, said “all Noosa swimmers had done the training, knew what they had to do, and were ready to race.”
Swimming Australia has selected the first-four placegetters in the Men’s 10km event in the Australian Team to compete at the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup 2025 in Soma Bay in Egypt in a few week’s time (21-22 February). Noosa’s Tom and Dylan will join Perth swimmers Kyle Lee and Adam Sudlow and the first two Australian swimmers to finish in that race will go to the World Ocean Swimming Championships Singapore later in the year ) Swimming Australia covers all expenses for the 4 Australian lads . As the first Australian female to finish in the Women’s 10km race, Noosa’s Bianca Crisp has been invited to compete but by Swimming Australia does not cover her expenses.
Regardless of the results in Egypt, Tom Raymon will fly to the USA for three weeks of intensive training in the high-altitude area of Flagstaff. Arizona. He will then participate in the American Open Water Championships in Florida.
(Dr Ian Jobling is Honorary Patron of the UQ Queensland Centre of Olympic and Paralympic Studies)
