Swimming Victoria country long course championships under way

The Warrnambool Swimming Club (WSC) life members haven't missed a countries since 2009 even though they don't take the sport as seriously as they used to.

Th Melbourne-based swimmers are thrilled the championships are back in the south-west where they grew up.

Michael and Jack, both 31, grew up at Killarney and their parents still live in Port Fairy.

READ MORE:

Michael's stoked to be competing in the three-day competition at Warrnambool's Aquazone.

"It's much nicer to be able to stay with Mum and Dad then be holed up in a caravan somewhere," he said.

"It's good to have dinner on the table when you get home.

"It's great for the team, great for the club and great for the town to have it here."

He said the swimming community was what kept drawing him back.

Jack swims to keep fit.

"I do at least two or three sessions a week and we do countries every year to keep ourselves in the water," he said.

The identical twins competed in their first countries in 2002 and are now the oldest swimmers competing for WSC at the event.

They moved to Melbourne during their teens after accepting swimming scholarships to board at Carey Baptist Grammar School from years 10-12.

"Once we finished our main competitive careers, Jayson (Lamb) got back in touch with us and asked if we wanted to come back and swim country champs in 2009," Jack said.

Lamb was their first squad coach and they were his first national swimmers back in 2002.

Jack will compete in the 50 metre butterfly, 50m backstroke, 50m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle.

Michael will take on the 200m medley, 50m butterfly, 50m freestyle and the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke.

The first set of finals were held at Aquazone on Friday afternoon.

Sixteen WSC members made finals and the club had eight relay teams in finals.

At the time of writing, Sophie Thomas had won silver in the 400m open freestyle.

Jude De Silva-Smith finished third in the 11 and under boys backstroke.

Traralgon Swimming Club's Mikaela Cornelissen equaled the women's 18 and over 50m butterfly record of 28.81 seconds set by Shepparton's Elisha Fiddes in 2008.

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.