Twelve from 12 for Jodiesha at Rotorua meet

SECOND-TOP CLUB: Members of the Comet team who travelled to Rotorua for the Aquaknights zone meet of the New Zealand Junior Festival. They are, back (from right): Aria Harrison, Rixon Skudder, Jodiesha Kirkpatrick, Imogen Amor-Bendall and Tamsyn Brown. Front: Natalie Johnson, Noah Emerre, Max Phillips, Lily Hulley, Ariana Kepa and Sophia O’Hara. Pictures by Liam Clayton

COMET swimmer Jodiesha Kirkpatrick had a 100 percent record for her individual races in the Aquaknights zone competition of the New Zealand Junior Festival in Rotorua last weekend.

Her efforts have her ranked as top 11-year-old girl in New Zealand swimming.

At the Aquaknights meet, Jodiesha won 12 gold medals from her 12 individual swims in the 11-year-old girls’ division.

In doing so, she set a Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay record in the 100-metre butterfly, improving on a mark set in 2003, and eight Comet Swimming Club records.

At a Comet clubnight on Thursday, Jodiesha set a HBPB record in the 11yr girls’ 200m individual medley.

The Aquaknights zone includes all clubs from the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay regions.

Rixon Skudder won five gold medals in the 10yr-and-under boys’ division — in the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke, and 100m and 200m breaststroke. He also won silver in the 50m and 100m butterfly, and bronze in the 100m individual medley. He set a club record that bettered a mark set by Ben Quilter in 2004.

Imogen Amor-Bendall won gold in the 12yr girls’ 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly, and bronze in the 50m freestyle.

She set three club records, bettering two that had stood since 2003.

Tamsyn Brown won gold in the 12yr girls’ 50m breaststroke and silver in the 100m and 200m breaststroke.

Angus Blair won gold in the 12yr boys’ 200m backstroke and bronze in the 100m backstroke.

The Comet A team of Kirkpatrick, Amor-Bendall, Blair and Skudder won gold in the 200m individual medley relay and silver in the 200m freestyle mixed relay.

Comet swimmers set 103 personal-best times, and the club was second-top club overall, behind Swim Rotorua.

Other Comet swimmers competing were Angus Baker, Noah Emerre, Riria Ferris-Reynolds, Aria Harrison, Lily Hulley, Natalie Johnson, Ariana Kepa, Celine McNabb, Sophia O’Hara, Max Phillips and Kaylah Reynolds.