The fact Wellington, who is coached by Gary Knight, has only been a competitive swimmer for two years made her feats particularly impressive.
"I train for an hour, four or five days each week. My dad [Grant Wellington] used to swim so you could say the genes have a little bit to do with it," the Arthur Miller School Year 6 student explained.
"With Bianca preferring the long-distance event and me the sprint, we might be able to share the spoils in our age group during the coming years," she added.
A product of the Learn to Swim programme, Van Zyl has also been competitive for two years. The fly is her preferred stroke.
"I'm looking forward to new challenges and new rivals here in the Bay," Van Zyl said. The Twyford School Year 6 student will also be coached by Knight.
Napier Aquahawks' Arianna Wright also travelled home from last weekend's meet, which attracted almost 500 swimmers from 85 clubs throughout the country, with four medals. The Iona College year 9 pupil, who is coached by Frank Wylie, won golds in her 12 years and under 50m and 100m breaststroke finals, silver in the 200m breaststroke and bronze in the HBPB 12 and under girls 200m medley relay team.
Wright's 50m breaststroke time of 35.37s is a new HBPB record by 1.2s. This time also qualifies "Ari the Ferrari" (her nickname because of her speed in the water) for the New Zealand Open Champs in Auckland next month.
The relay team, which also included Heretaunga Sundevils' Harriet Park on the backstroke leg, Aquahawk Natalya Roberts on the fly leg and Central Hawke's Bay's Caitlin Jenkins on the freestyle leg produced a phenomenal effort to finish third behind Auckland and Wellington and ahead of fourth placed Otago in their first outing.
The fact Jenkins and Roberts rank breaststroke as their preferred stroke added to the significance of the feat.
Park, a Woodford House year 8 pupil, who regards herself as a specialist sprint swimmer, is coached by Franco October and Lucas du Rossi. She is eyeing Olympic Games selection in the future and realises she may have to sacrifice some of her other sports to achieve this.
Park is a Hawke's Bay under-13 football rep and next weekend she will represent her Waimarama Surf Lifesaving Club at the national under-14 championships in Mount Maunganui in beach sprint and run-swim-run events. This weekend she has her school swimming sports.
Jenkins pointed out she is reaping the benefits of her five training sessions each week with coach Aidan Withington.
"I want to be one of the best in New Zealand throughout my age groups," Jenkins said. The Central Hawke's Bay College 12-year-old also enjoys netball and cricket.
Roberts, a Napier Girls' High School year 9 pupil, has been a competitive swimmer since she was 9.
"I want to go to the Olympics but at the moment I'm making the most of the opportunity to do other sports like hockey, football, futsal and volleyball," she said.
Sundevil Michael Lansdown was Hawke's Bay's only male medallist at the champs. The Hereworth School Year 7 student won bronze in his 100m and 200m breaststroke finals for under-11s.
"This was my third nationals and there was a lot more competition because there were more boys than previously. I was a bit lucky in the 200m because it was so close but in the 100 it was really tight for second and then there was a gap to the rest of the starters," Lansdown explained.
"I'm having some time off training now because I have cricket and rugby commitments to focus on," he added.
