Simple plan wins gold

St Matthews Collegiate fifth former Ashley McDougall had a simple game plan when she won her 50m butterfly age group title at the New Zealand youth and open swimming championships held at the Kilbirnie Aquatic Centre in Wellington last week.
The first priority was a good start and from there it was a case of going flat out all the way to the finish.
"You don't worry about tactics in a sprint like that??you just give it everything you've got," she said.
It was hardly surprising though that it was the last 25m of the event that McDougall gained her winning advantage for it was then that the stamina gained from preparing for events ranging in distance from 50m to 800m kicked in.
"I knew I'd have the strength to finish off well and that's what did it for me," she said.
While her gold medal winning effort was the obvious highlight for McDougall at the championships she also excelled herself on several other occasions.
Silver medals came her way in the 400m freestyle and 200m freestyle and she was a bronze medallist in the 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly and 100m freestyle.
McDougall puts her success down to the intensive training regime set for her by Masterton coach Jiri Mikolas.
She trained twice daily in the weeks leading into the championships and had improved her times to the point where she was very optimistic of making a bold showing in both freestyle and butterfly.
"I thought I could do ok , it was just up to me to do my best," she said.
McDougall has no intentions yet on specialising on any particular stroke, or distance.
She finds that competing in butterfly and freestyle makes training more interesting and she enjoys both sprints and long distance racing.
"I've been told the longer events might suit more but we'll just have to wait and see,' she said.
Representing New Zealand is an ambition held by McDougall but she is realistic about what has to happen before that would occur.
"My times have to improve a fair bit yet and that's what we've got to work on now," she said.
Bradley Aplin, 17, and Tyson Hullena, 16, were other medal winners for Wairarapa at the championships.
Aplin was third in the 400m individual medley and Hullena third in the 1500m freestyle.
There were strong performances too from Francesa Ghinami, Tamara Gray, Kaye Slater and Cameron Voyce, most of whom recorded personal best times in numerous events.
Age group rankings for the Wairarapa squad are:-
BRADLEY APLIN (17yrs): Fifth in 400m freestyle, sixth in 200m backstroke, 10th in 50m backstroke, fourth in 1500m freestyle, 12th in 100m backstroke, third in 400m individual medley.
FRANCESCA GHINAMI (17yrs) Fifth in 400m freestyle, sixth in 50m freestyle, seventh in 200m freestyle, 12 th in 50m butterfly, fourth in 800m freestyle, 10 th in 100m freestyle.
TYSON HULLENA (16yrs): Fourth in 400m freestyle, 10 th in 200m individual medley, eighth in 200m butterfly, 16 th in 100m butterfly, 15 th in 200m freestyle, 25 th in 50m butterfly, third in 1500m freestyle, fifth in 400m individual medley.
ASHLEY MCDOUGALL (16yrs): Second in 400m freestyle, third in 100m butterfly, 17 th in 50m freestyle, second in 200m freestyle, third in 200m butterfly, fourth in 800m freestyle, third in 100m freestyle, first in 50m butterfly.
KAYE SLATER : Fourth in 200m backstroke.
CAMERON VOYCE (18yrs): Sixth in 50m breaststroke, fifth in 100m breaststroke.
Hullena also placed ninth in the open 200m butterfly while McDougall was fifth in the open 800m freestyle and eighth in the open 50m butterfly.