Seeing double at swim champs

Three sets of 11-year-old twins swam in last weekend's Bay of Islands Spring Championships: From back left, Moanaroa and Nadine Witana, Holly and Grace Hilton-Jones; front, Emma and Samantha Dutton.

It's not every day you have three sets of 11-year-old twin girls all competing at the same carnival - but that's exactly what happened at the Bay of Islands Spring Championship meet last weekend.

Bream Bay Swimming Club's Emma and Samantha Dutton, Nga Papahu's Moanaroa and Nadine Witana and Whangarei's Grace and Holly Hilton-Jones were all hunting down medals in the same age group - but the Witana sisters' November birthdays mean the girls won't swim against each other all season.

The twins were six of 89 swimmers from seven Northland clubs at the annual championship meet which was supposed to be held two weeks earlier, but rescheduled when a broken pump closed the Te Papawai Community Pool at Kawakawa.

Meet records fell to Bream Bay's Paul Linton (15-year-boys' 50m back, 200m IM, 100m back) and Conor Swords (14-year-boys 200m back, 50m back) and also Northwave's Jeremy Elliott (14-year-boys' 100m fly, 100m back).

Winners of the skins 50m free race (a knockout event in which the top six 50m free swimmers compete against each other, with the slowest swimmer dropping out after each heat) were Bream Bay's Kieran Swords (16) in the men's event and Emma Wickham (17) in the women's.