Carterton Swimming Club coach Russell Geange admits even he was caught by surprise at the medal-winning achievements by his squad at the Wellington long course championships last weekend. A remarkable 44 medals came the way of Carterton - 14 gold, 19 silver and 11 bronze - and they finished fifth outof 31 clubs in the team's event "We thought we could do well but, yes, the results were pretty amazing, better than we could have expected," Geange said. Never one to blow his own trumpet Geange was quick to deflect any praise for Carterton's powerful showing on to his swimmers. "They've done the hard yards and it's paid off," he said. "They are a dedicated group and that's the key to it." Geange admits having just three lanes in the Carterton pool for training purposes is not exactly ideal when preparing a squad of swimmers for major events and he believes a five-day camp at Marton, which has a 50m pool, earlier this month was perhaps the main catalyst to the effort in Wellington. "We did a lot of work on individual techniques and it all came together on the day," he said. All told 10 Carterton swimmers won medals in the capital, Charlotte Pope (seven gold and two silver), Trina Simmonds (four gold, two silver and two bronze), Grace Hammond (two gold), Joe Hammond (one gold, two silver and three bronze), Brittany Wilson (two silver), Kendall Peterson (two silver and two bronze), Taylah Mawson (two silver), Talia Hullena (four silver and three bronze), Hannah Hammond (one silver) and Samuel Pepper (three silver). Trina Simmonds and Charlotte Pope were first and second respectively for the overall title in the girls 14yrs age group while Talia Hullena won the girls 15yrs overall title. Five of the Carterton squad will be heading to the New Zealand junior nationals next month - Brittany Wildman, Kate Warren, Jaimee Hicks-Wilton, Taylah Mawson and Kendall Peterson - while eight others have qualified for national competitions in March - Charlotte Pope, Trina Simmonds, Joe Hammond, Grace Hammond, Talia Hullena, Hannah Hammond, Samuel Pepper and Michael Hammond.
