Swimming: Duo are glory boys after bagging medals

Callum Pride winning the Individual Medley 400m at the Northland Swimming Championships. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Northwave swimmers Callum Prime and Matthew Gordon covered themselves in glory at Dargaville over the weekend by collecting a stack of gold medals.

The pair both edged into double figure gold medal counts as swimmers from 14 clubs took part in the Northland Swimming Championships at Kauri Coast Community Pool.

Prime (15) brought home 11 gold medals, while team-mate Gordon secured 10 in the 16-years age group.

Other swimmers to feature heavily in terms of hardware included Northwave 12-year-old Mia Gordon with nine gold medals, Bay of Islands 10-year-old Emilia Finer with eight golds, and the Bay of Islands duo of Logan Gaualofa (12), Jeremy Elliott (13), and Northwave's David Van der Star (18), who each won seven golds.

There were many other stand-out performances during the three-day carnival, which was blessed with beautiful weather at the outdoor pool. A host of race records and Northland records were broken during the course of the meet.

The Northwave Swimming Club from Whangarei was once again the most successful club at the championships winning more than 65 gold medals collectively.

The Bream Bay Swimming Club won the prestigious Crawford Woodman Trophy for the eight person relay, held across four age groups, while the rest of the relays were shared between Bream Bay, Bay of Islands and Northwave.

More Northland swimmers were also able to qualify for the upcoming national championship events, including six more in each of the NZ Age Group, NZ Junior and Div 2 events, and one more for the prestigious NZ Open Championships.

Eleven Northland swimmers have now qualified for NZ Opens, the most from Northland for many years.

Northwave swimmers feature heavily in this list with eight having qualified, while Bream Bay has three set to take part in NZ's highest ranked championships.

The Northwave swimmers are David Van der Star, Matthew Gordon, Hayley McIntosh, Callum Prime, Madeline Gordon, Ellie Eastwood, Annabell Simpson and Ciara Smith, while Bream Bay currently has Ruby Lee Beckham, Isabelle Paton and David Platt qualified.