Swimming: Horne of plenty in Short Course event

Sunday afternoon concluded three days of top swimming action during the Bay of Plenty Short Course Swimming Championships at Baywave.

The Bayswim Greerton Swim Club fielded one of the largest teams, 43 swimmers. For the seniors, the objective was to meet the qualifying times for the New Zealand Championships in Wellington.

Blake Horne, 13, underlined his potential hitting qualifying marks in the 50m and 100m backstroke as well as the 400m and 1500m freestyle events. Horne reduced his 1500m personal best by more than 48 seconds to record 18:22.47 and backed that up with an excellent 4:43.43 400m, chopping that personal best by 11s.

Fellow 13-year-old Libby Bradley missed out by 100ths of a second in a number of events while making four finals. The pick was the 100m backstroke in which she missed the NZ standard of 1:12.80 by just 0.05s.

Claudia Capp, 14, posted a best 200m butterfly of 2:38.63 to book a slot in Wellington, and repeated in the 200m individual medley. Capp also led off the third-placed Greerton 4x100m relay team with Sarah Greaves (17), Bradley and Danielle Waiari (14). Capp's lead-off qualified her for the national 100m freestyle event.

A finals berth and a solid sixth-placing saw Stacy Muir (14) qualify for the 200m freestyle. She just missed out in the 800m freestyle where she slashed 7s off her personal best in 9:53.31, just outside the required time.

Danielle Waiari pushed through to 10 personal bests from 14 swims qualifying in 50m and 100m backstroke as well as the pick of her swims, a second in the 100m freestyle final, clocking 1:01.76.

Calum Gilmour (15) is another swimmer just starting to flourish under the tutelage of Bayswim Greerton coach Tai Daniela. Daniela's strategy not to push swimmers too hard too early is a cornerstone of his philosophy and Gilmour is starting to come into his own.

Another massive PB over 1500m freestyle (17:31.11) earned him a place in Wellington, as did his 4:28.89 400m freestyle. Gilmour also posted qualifying times in the 100m and 200m butterfly.

The Greerton squad will now number at least eight swimmers.

Many of the Junior swimmers experienced their first big meet atmosphere.

The extremely low disqualification rate (3 DQs from 268 starts) was a satisfying statistic showing the regular practice under the guidance of Bayswim coach Sharon Hough is paying dividends.

Of the 43 Greerton swimmers taking part, 14 were 11 years old and younger. Another pleasing statistic was that two out of every three swims produced a personal best.

Few PBs were more impressive than Ezra Cashmore's explosion on to the sprinting scene - especially his 100m freestyle time which he reduced by almost 6 seconds to 1:11.63.

Joy Mitchell (10) set 15 PBs from 16 events, underlined by a 1:31.40 100m individual medley. She had one of the DQs.

Another of Hough's swimmers to shine was 9-year-old Jessica Martin, who swam a 13s PB in the 200m freestyle.

Olivia Philpot, 10, was third in the 50m breaststroke in a fast 46.60s.