HOPEFULS: Bream Bay Swimming Club's Kieran Swords (left), Isabelle Paton, Emma Wickham, Zelda Sims, Paul Linton and Rose Linton will be hunting for medals at this weekend's Douglas Logging Swimming Northland Age Group Championships. PHOTO/MIKE SWORDS
HOPEFULS: Bream Bay Swimming Club's Kieran Swords (left), Isabelle Paton, Emma Wickham, Zelda Sims, Paul Linton and Rose Linton will be hunting for medals at this weekend's Douglas Logging Swimming Northland Age Group Championships. PHOTO/MIKE SWORDS
Northland's premier swimming championships are on this weekend at the Kauri Coast Pool in Dargaville.
About 150 swimmers will line up for the Douglas Logging Swimming Northland Age Group Championships, where the best swimmers from Northland will compete in the outdoor 50m pool.
Likely Northland stand-outs include the very strongNorthwave contingent led by 2015 NZ Age Group team representatives Hayley McIntosh and Callum Prime, and including other recent national age group medallists Matthew Gordon, Ellie Eastwood, Annabell Simpson, Ciara Smith, Jeremy Elliot and Mia Gordon. Other recent national age group medallists likely to feature include Bream Bay's Paul Linton and Isabelle Paton, and Whangarei's Euan Sapwell.
Many of the region's swimmers will also be hoping to better the rigid entry times to qualify for the various coming national championships - the NZ Junior Champs (12 years and under), the NZ Division 2 competition, NZ Open Champs and the NZ Age Group Champs (13-18 years).
Session one of the meet started yesterday afternoon, with racing resuming at 9am today, followed by another session today at 5pm.
Tomorrow the swimming continues at 9am with the final session following in the afternoon. The 50m, 200m, and 400m events are all timed finals, while the 100m events have heats - held last night and this morning - followed by the finals, which are on tonight and tomorrow.
