MOUNT Cotton’s Paige Leonhardt has been selected for the 70-member swimming team for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Leonhardt is one of 21 para-sport athletes in the team, which was announced following the Australian Swimming Trials on the Gold Coast.
The team is made up of 40 swimmers from Queensland, including Chandler sisters Cate and Bronte Campbell.
Seventeen-year-old Leonhardt is one of the younger members of the team, after 13-year-old Jasmine Greenwood and by 16-year-old Kaylee McKeown.
Leonhardt started her swimming career in Port Maquarie before moving to Mount Cotton in January last year.
She first competed in 2012 and swam for Australia in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio.
Commonwealth Games Australia team executive Andrew Baildon said the trials had given a taste of the action that could be expected from the team next month.
“I know how special it is to be named on an Australian Commonwealth Games team and I feel extremely humble to welcome these 70 swimmers on to TeamAUS for Gold Coast 2018,” he said.
National head coach Jacco Verhaeren said he was pleased with the people who qualified.
“I think we've got, almost without exception I'd say, the best people in their best events,” he said.
“I think that's important because if you want to defend titles and want to make the most out of the medal prospects in five weeks’ time you need your best people there.
“We want a full team and we want to compete in every event for medals. It's that simple as that.”
Verhaeren said Swimming Australia’s pathway performance staff worked with state head coaches to pick up young swimmers who had potential.
“James Magnussen was one of those guys,” he said. “Three years before the Olympics he was invisible and then suddenly he is picked up and goes to a great coach and great program and becomes world's fastest swimmer.”
