Local athletes take on Commonwealth Games

THE Birmingham Commonwealth Games kick off this week, and there a several Bendigo athletes who will be going for gold.

 

Jenna Strauch

Swimming

Twenty-five-year-old swimmer Strauch is looking to add to her medal collection, coming off a great showing at the FINA World Championships where she won two silvers.

She’s competing in her pet event, the 200-metre breaststroke, as well as the 100-metre and 50-metre breaststroke.

In May, Strauch announced herself on the national stage by winning the 200-metre event at the Australian Swimming Championships.

The former Bendigo East Swimming Club competitor has plenty of support from her hometown, winning the Bendigo Sports Star monthly award twice.

You can catch her on days one, three and four of the Commonwealth Games.

Col Pearse

Swimming

Bamawm paralympic swimmer Pearse will also be competing in the pool.

He will swim in the 100-metre butterfly S10, the same event he claimed bronze in at the Tokyo Paralympics in August last year.

He also competed in the men’s 200-meter individual medley S10, finishing fourth with a time of 2:14.20.

The 19-year-old, whose right foot was amputated due to an accident at the age of two, turned heads when he revealed he turned a dam at his family’s dairy farm into a pool to train in during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Pearse was awarded a monthly Bendigo Sports Star award in August last year. He will swim on day five of the Commonwealth Games.

Aaron Wilson

Lawn bowls

Wilson will look to make it two golds in a row, having been successful in singles at the 2018 Gold Coast games.

Currently playing out of the Brighton Bowls Club, Wilson grew up in St Arnaud and developed his craft at the Bendigo Bowls Club.

He has won Australian Singles titles in 2013 and 2021, as well as a gold medal at the 2016 World Outdoor Championships.

Wilson is a two-time Bendigo Sports Star of the year.

Barrie Lester

Lawn bowls

Bendigo-born Lester is on the hunt for his first gold having previously won bronze in the pairs in Melbourne in 2006 with and silver in the triples and the fours at Gold Coast 2018.

The 2016/17 Australian male bowler of the year is based in the Gold Coast, playing for the Burleigh Heads Bowls Club.

Most recently, he competed at the 2022 Trans-Tasman tournament, claiming the overall team and overall men’s champion.

Lawn bowls is the first event of this year’s Commonwealth Games.

Alessia McCaig

Cycling

Teenage cycling superstar McCaig will compete in her first Games, having represented Australia four times.

She won gold in the time trial and team sprint at the Oceania Championships this year.

The former Bendigo and District Cycling Club member took up riding when she was nine and currently holds four national records, including the under-17 sprint and team sprint, and the under-19 sprint and time trial.

This year, McCaig was awarded a tier one scholarship from the 2022 Sport Australia Hall of Fame and was paired with Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham.

She is the great-niece of the first Bendigo Sports Star of the Year, Frank McCaig and has won several monthly trophies as well as the Maxine Crouch Trust Fund award herself.

Catch McCaig taking to the velodrome on the first four days of the Games.

 

Andy Buchanan

Marathon

Long distance runner Andy Buchanan is another athlete making his Commonwealth Games debut at Birmingham, in the men’s marathon.

Buchanan is a two-time Australian 10-kilometre cross-country champion, just the fourth athlete to win back-to-back national titles.

Racing in his first marathon just this year, he impressed by finishing 15th with a time of 2:12.23 hours, the equal 25th fastest time in Australian history.

His best results include a half marathon time of 1.02.50 in Tachikawa, Japan and finishing seventh in the 2019 Zatopek:10 with a time of 28.26.14.

The 31-year-old races for the Bendigo University Athletics Club and teaches at Bendigo South East College and won a monthly Bendigo Sports Star award in August, 2018.

Buchanan hits the roads of Birmingham on Saturday at 6pm, 9am local time.