With more than 1600 entries, the 2011 Greerton Winter meet hosted by the Greerton Swimming Club this weekend looks set to be one of the biggest swim meets to be held in Tauranga this year.
The change of venue from the Greerton swimming pool to Baywave in Mount Maunganui has been a factor in attracting some of the best swimmers from around the North Island to the meet, which is backed by major sponsors Marra Building Solutions and the Lion Foundation.
Baywave is regarded as a 'fast' 25m pool and, with 10 lanes, can handle more swimmers per event. In addition, more than $4000 in prize money as well as being well placed as a build-up event for the New Zealand age group short course champs in Wellington next month has contributed to a star-studded roster of nationally ranked swimmers.
Swimmers from Auckland, Wellington, Poverty Bay, Hawke's Bay, Wanganui and the Waikato will test their speed against the local club swimmers.
Greerton's Nathan Capp, 18, now swimming out of the high performance centre on Auckland's North Shore, has entered 10 events, including his favoured 400m freestyle and medley events.
In the 200m medley, Capp is likely to be pushed close by North Shore rival Steven Kent, 23. Whakatane's rising star, backstroker Aaron Gandy, 16, will be hoping to match his No1 rankings over the 50m and 100m backstroke events and perhaps surprise in the 200m backstroke as well.
With a seed time of 23.46 seconds, Napier's Daniel Gregory-Campbell, 17, heads up the largest event of the meet, the 50m freestyle which has 204 competitors. Among the women, local hope Greerton's Taylor Armstrong, 17, will be measuring up against New Zealand representative, 21-year-old Grace Francis (North Shore) a number of times over the weekend, with Francis the top-ranked female overall.
Also likely to feature is transplanted Zimbabwean sprint star Samantha Richter, 21. With personal bests of 25.02 and 26.88 for the 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly respectively she will take some beating.
The presence of Auckland's Grace Marriner-Duncan, 20, will ensure Francis and Richter don't have everything their own way. Expect also a strong showing from Otumoetai's Jessica Millar, 15, over 400m medley and 800m freestyle in particular.
Sunday afternoon will see the feature "Medley Skins" event take place. In this event, the meet's top 10 points scorers are selected for the Medley Skins, which is swum in five heats leaving every two minutes. The slowest two swimmers are eliminated in each heat with the last surviving swimmer taking a hard-earned $300 first prize.