Making good citizens, one lap at a time

CHARGING AHEAD: Josiah Ney, 19, from the Comet club, competes in the 50-metre butterfly at the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay Summer Championships at the Olympic Pool yesterday. Picture by Paul Rickard

SWIMMING

THE Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay Summer Championships are in full swing at Gisborne’s Olympic Pool and about 250 young swimmers are in action.

The championships started on Thursday evening and will run until tomorrow.

Event director Gary Martin said it was a teams-focused meet, with swimmers representing clubs such as Comet and Enterprise.

Many of the swimmers were entering a lot of races at the championships and the event came at a time of year when some were putting in a lot of training, he said.

The short-course champs are held in Hawke’s Bay in the winter and the long-course summer champs are held in Gisborne at the 50-metre pool.

It is Martin’s 50th time at the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay summer champs.

“I’ve had wonderful experiences with the sport,” he said.

“It’s great to see the progress of the kids.”

Nowadays, people had many sports to choose from but swimming provided a reliable base, he said.

Martin said swimming taught people an important life skill and it was a great foundation for sports such as surf lifesaving and triathlon.

Discipline that young people got from swimming helped them later in life, he said.

“Very few of our swimmers have not turned out to be good citizens.”