Brewarrina roots run deep for Commonwealth Games medallist
Story: Kristin Murdock – kmurdock@outbackradio.com.au
At just 17, Sienna Toohey has returned from her first Commonwealth Games with three medals around her neck – but more than 1,000 kilometres from her Albury home, Brewarrina is proudly claiming a connection to the rising Australian swimming star.
Sienna produced an outstanding Commonwealth Games debut in Glasgow, winning silver in the 50m breaststroke, bronze in the 100m breaststroke and gold as part of Australia’s 4 x 100m medley relay team.
Sienna’s family roots run deep in Brewarrina, where generations of the Hart family lived and worked and where her father, Albury High School principal Damian Toohey, spent a large part of his childhood visiting family.
For Mr Toohey and his wife Simone, who travelled to Glasgow to watch their daughter compete, the scale of her achievement is still sinking in.
“I was there, I watched it happen, but it still surreal,” he said.
The individual medals were Sienna’s first at international level. She had previously been part of Australia’s silver medal-winning medley relay team at last year’s World Championships, swimming in the heat but not the final.
At her first Swimming Australia national age championships in Adelaide, Sienna finished 10th in the 200m breaststroke final and did not make the top 20 in either the 50m or 100m breaststroke.
“And four years later, she’s on the podium at the Commonwealth Games,” Mr Toohey said. “My wife and I just look at each other sometimes and go, ‘Can you believe this kid’s done this?’”
Sienna followed older brother Archie into sport and the pair wanted to play water polo. They were told their swimming needed improvement, so Mrs Toohey enrolled them in swimming club. […]
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