Narrabri Stingrays host club championshipss carnival

A date on the swimming calendar that most have been eagerly awaiting this season finally arrived on Saturday when Narrabri Stingrays Swimming Club hosted its highly-anticipated 2025/26 club championships carnival.

Sixteen of the club’s 17 members were in action on the day, and there were six impressive young champions crowned.

With no club carnival held in Narrabri since 2024, and the club championships previously held across a number of weeks during Monday nights’ swim club events, club president Todd Stanford told The Courier that the youngsters enjoyed having the carnival atmosphere back at their home pool.

“It all went really well and everyone had a really good time,” Stanford said.

“It had been spread out over a few weeks in the few seasons before. It was done as a point score thing over a few weeks, but this year a decision was made to make a day of it. Everyone just wanted to have a fun club day.

“It really worked out well.

“We’ve had a lot of new swimmers join this year – I think six or seven – so it was good to give them a carnival experience they’ve never had in Narrabri.

“Everybody had fun and enjoyed that part of it.

“We had three different age groups. They were the eight and unders (minis), 10s-11s (juniors), and 12s and opens (seniors).

“We didn’t have it as a timed event. It wasn’t a seeded event. It was just based on what the kids did on the day, and we added the points up from each event.”

Stanford thanked all of the Stingrays swimmers who participated and their families, as well as the small but hard-working committee and all of the sponsors who help make the event and the entire 2025/26 season possible.

A list of champions and runners-up from each age division is as follows:
Mini girls: Champion – Lara Leculier, runner-up – Florence Cuell.
Mini boys: Champion – Logan Seymour, runner-up – Alex Melton.
Junior girls: Champion – Harper Greentree, runner-up – Elspeth Denniss.
Junior boys: Champion – Boston Hughes, runner-up – Eli Warren.
Senior girls: Champion – Bridie Seymour, runner-up – Zara Warnock.
Senior boys: Champion – Jedd Stanford, runner-up – Andre Leculier.

Meanwhile, four Stingrays then backed up on Sunday at the Quirindi Swimming Club’s 2026 long course carnival. Boston and Savannah Hughes, Eli Warren and Elspeth Denniss all competed and represented the Stingrays club in style.