After having a very long and hard training block thanks to the AAAF for funding my training for me to have the best possible training and opportunity to achieve what I want to achieve. In the past 3 months I have competed in many ocean swims across the north and southern beaches on Sydney winning them all! All of these ocean swims give me the practice that I need to get ready for our NSW state championships which were held in the middle of December both for pool and open water swimming. In the 4 events that I competed in I received 3 golds and a bronze medal. My bronze medal was in the 400m freestyle and my golds were in the 1500m freestyle, 5km and 10km events making me the NSW distance queen for 2023! Due to these amazing results throughout my whole year of 2023, I was given the opportunity to go up to Noosa on the sunshine coast to go train with some of the best swimmers in Australia over the Christmas and New Years break.

Thanks to the AAAF for there support and helping me so I could chase my dreams. With the amazing year I had, travelling overseas for the first time representing Australia and the Alopecia community. The amount of amazing people I have met, I have been blessed enough with the opportunity to show the world and tell people my Alopecia story and journey.

With the amazing year I have had in 2023 , it’s going to be very hard to top in 2024. My focus is now on our Australian National Championships held in Busselton, WA. My goal is a few medals but I can only race my best. After that my plans are to do some more international racing to gain the experience I need for the end of 2024 when we have our qualifiers to be an official Australian Dolphin and compete at a world championships which has been my main goal for many years.

Tayla was a part of our sponsorship program – you can also participate! Go here to learn more https://aaaf.org.au/sponsorship-program