The 10-year-old was one of four Queanbeyan swimmers to make the trip to Sydney for this year’s 10-12yrs State Age championships alongside Alex Lakic, Nik Trajkovski and Claire Molineux.

Rauter secured sixth-place finishes in the 200m individual medley and 100m breaststroke alongside 10th-place in the 100m backstroke, 12th in the 100m freestyle and 21st in the 50m freestyle.

“Brad did well in the short-course over summer but he really wanted to try to make the top 10 in his events this time around,” Rauter’s father and Queanbeyan League’s Swim Club vice-president Richard said.

“He’s been around that sort of level for awhile but he swam a bit better [up in Sydney] that what everyone expected, especially himself.

“So it’s a good improvement but there’s still a big difference between top 10 and top three. But for where he is at the moment he’s done really well.”

Impressively, Rauter set personal best times in each of his five events. Nationals hopeful Claire Molineux narrowly missed out on a top 10 result after finishing 11th in the 200m backstroke.

Queanbeyan swimmers Taylar Tisma, Alexie Boulton and Andrew Catchpole, meanwhile, have spent the past week competing at the 13-18yrs State Age Championships in Sydney.

The next major competition on the swimming calender will be the NSW Country Championships on the 22-23rd of February.