Torpedoes Swim Club

School at the HKSSF Secondary Schools K2D3 Championships 2014, Revolution Asia Open Water Series Primary & Secondary Schools Champions 2014, ESF Aquathon Champions 2015, and AISA Champions 2014 & 2015. In 2014, at the AISHK Primary and Secondary School Swimming Carnivals, 56 school records were broken! The club initially expanded from Sunday afternoon club races to conducting a morning training squad before school. This was hugely and immediately popular, with most mornings quickly booked out with a waiting list to get in. The squad trained every public holiday, and during term breaks. The club's pioneering Open Water program introduced many kids to ocean swimming, resulting in great success in this format of competition, both locally and internationally. From a core membership of about 30 kids, over 4 years (2011-2015), the Torpedoes swimming club developed a host of outstanding state, national and international level swimmers. 14 of them went on to achieve Australian National Age Championship qualifying times in the pool or Open Water, including 3 HK Champions (Temana Short 9x, and Bill Thorley 4x, Anneekah Styles), 4 state champions (Andy Pich, Felicity Buchmaier, Sam & Bill Thorley), 3 State relay gold medalists (Brendan Hee, George Zhu, Nick Godbille), 3 made state rep teams (George Zhu, Annalisa Mendham, Sienna Palser), and a multiple Australian, HK and NZ National Champion (Bill Thorley), who was state champion in every state of mainland Australia. At just 16 years of age, Bill was selected to compete at the FINA World Championships where, as the youngest swimmer in the Open Water 5km, he finished only 30 seconds behind the winner. At 18 years of age he qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, where again he was the youngest swimmer in the race, finishing 22nd. The following year he went to his 2nd World Championships in Budapest. Torpedoes was conceived, managed, coached, and administered by Ken and Joey Thorley.