SWIMMING: Olympic gold medallist Alicia Coutts presented the Swimming Australia Club of the Year award to Warwick at a gala dinner at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Sunday night.

Olympic champions Kyle Chalmers and Mack Horton, open water swimmers Chelsea Gubecka and Jarrod Poort, and Paralympic golden girl Maddison Elliott were among the award winners.

Warwick Swimming Club president Neil Vickers and his wife Selena received the award on behalf of the club.

In a statement, Swimming Australia paid tribute to the Warwick club.

"In 2015-2016, one of their biggest achievements came in the improvement of club swimmers,” the statement said.

"The Warwick Swimming Club had 32 members and had 14 members achieve the standards across all JX levels, 42% of members. The club also had a multi-class swimmer compete at national level and was recognised for actively applying for grants and fundraising.”

The club president said that while they didn't meet guest speaker and multiple Olympic gold medallist Ian Thorpe, they had conversations with Olympic gold medallists 60 years apart.

They met Dawn Fraser, who won her first gold in 1956, and Horton, who won gold this year.

"At 79, Dawn is amazing and remembers swimming in Warwick in 1956 as part of a camp before the Olympics,” Mr Vickers said.

"She told us Warwick was one of the training camps for swimmers at the time when they headed north for warmer weather to train before the Olympics.

"We were very impressed with Mack Horton and the time he spent talking to two people from Warwick.

He even made his parents wait for a photo with him and his award. Mack was very generous of his time.”

The club was presented with a framed certificate with a photo of the club swimmers who participated in the McNamara Sprints Carnival last month as well as receiving a monetary prize and the visit from an athlete.

"We hope the athlete to visit Warwick will be a swimmer who has won Olympic medals,” Mr Vickers said.

Gina impressed

THE Swimming Australia awards were attended by the who's who of swimming as well as some business leaders.

Mr Vickers said businesswoman Gina Rinehart was impressive to listen to at the dinner.

"She really impressed with what she had to say to the swimmers and you could see they really respect her,” he said.

Some of the awards were presented by world 100m freestyle record holder and Olympic relay gold medallist Cate Campbell and Swimming Australia president John Bertrand, who is better known for being among the team that won yachting's America's Cup for Australia.

The Warwick Swimming Club is one of the oldest in the sport and one of the oldest clubs on the Southern Downs.

It was formed in 1910 and while the name has changed slightly, volunteers' efforts to promote swimming in the town have not changed at all.

The club has moved pools down the years but continues to produce swimmers who perform well at all levels of the sport.

A member from the 1950s and 1960s, Graham Deuble, won silver in the Commonwealth Games in diving and competed in the Rome Olympics.

One of the constants of the Warwick Swimming Club is the Friday night club night.