New career brings Emily Atkins home

BACK IN THE SWIM OF THINGS: Former New Zealand champion Emily Atkins, who still holds a couple of national open records, in the pool with eager Comet club swimmers, who will don the club cap at the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay summer champs in Gisborne starting on Thursday night. Picture by Liam Clayton

A BLAST from the not-so-distant past turned up at the Olympic Pool on Saturday to inspire Comet Swimming Club youngsters preparing for the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay summer championships.

Seven years ago, Emily Atkins (nee Thomas) represented New Zealand at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

She placed eighth in the 50 metres backstroke and 11th in the 100 back, having gone into the Games on the back of a bronze medal 50 backstroke performance at the Pan Pacific championships in California, the first Kiwi swimmer to medal at the prestigious Pan Pacs in more than a decade.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.

Atkins, now 27, has not swum competitively for a long time, is married (to Mark), has two children (Noah and Lucas) and is a qualified teacher.

The Campion College old girl has also returned home from Palmerston North to live and starts teaching at Ilminster Intermediate next year.

Heading back to the Olympic Pool brought back plenty of memories but she was the first to admit her stroke was rusty.

It didn’t stop her, however, from passing on her knowledge to eager Comet club kids.

Starts, turns and relay skills were the focus of the training session, which Atkins enjoyed.

Atkins’ Gisborne swimming career featured stints at both city clubs — Enterprise Cars Swim Team and Comet — before she headed to Auckland’s North Shore.

She still holds the New Zealand open long and short-course records in the 100m backstroke, as well as the 18yrs age group national records in the 50 and 100 back over both courses.

She also has a swag of Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay age group records dating back as far as 2001.

Those competitive days may not be over just yet. When Comet head Greg Mead suggested she don the club cap for the summer champs in Gisborne, starting on Thursday night, she thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.