Australind swimmer Kyle Lee ready for 2022 Australian Open Water Championships and Rottnest Channel Swim

Australind swimmer Kyle Lee is preparing for a big couple of months, with his sights set on the 2022 Rottnest Channel Swim and Australian Open Water Championships. Nationals in Adelaide at the end of the month are the first stop for Lee, where he will race over 10km and 5km to try to earn a spot in the Australian swim team. Lee — whose family still lives in Australind, while he spends his weeks in Perth for training and university — was named in the junior Australian team after top-four finishes in the 10km and 5km races at the 2021 national championships. He is now too old to make the junior squad but said he hoped to make the open team. “It would be awesome to get selected (in the open team), but I don’t know if I am up for that level yet, we’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “I’m not too sure (how I’ll go), I’ll just give it a crack and see how things turn out. “You don’t know what the other guys are doing over east.” Lee said the current COVID situation in the Eastern States could stop him from achieving that dream. “It’s starting to look a bit shaky, whether things will go ahead now, but fingers crossed,” he said. After nationals, the 19-year-old’s focus will turn to the 19.7km Rottnest Channel Swim — the race in which he has claimed three third-place finishes from the same number of starts. While the rising star is hoping to go one or two better in the event this year, Lee said it was hard to plan for an event with so many variables. “It is such a long race, so you never know how it is going to pan out,” he said. “It goes for four hours or so, I will just try not to focus on the pacings and all that and try and do my best. “You’re just with your own mind, so you try and just stay focused and not let your mind wander too much.” Despite this, Lee said he was hoping for flat conditions, or easterly swells to push him towards “the rock”, and a finish time under 4½ hours. Lee — who was named the Shelley Taylor-Smith medallist as Swimming WA’s open water swimmer of the year in 2021 — said the Rottnest Channel Swim was bookmarked in every open water swimmers calendar. “It’s a very competitive field this year,” he said. “A lot of swimmers do this to tick it off their bucket list. “It’s definitely something in the open water scene that has gotten quite big.” The 2022 Australian Open Water Championships will be held at Brighton Beach in Adelaide from January 28 to 30, before the Rottnest Channel Swim takes place on February 26.