Rotorua swimmers excel in Australia

Swimmer Bianca Donnelly produced several personal bests in Australia. Photo/Stephen Parker

Swim Rotorua athletes Bianca Donelley and Paddy Baylis produced excellent performances in Australia at the weekend.

The pair were representing the New Zealand Age Group Swimming Team versus the Australian state teams.

Donelley enjoyed success in her five individual and three relay races. Her top performance came in the girls' 13-14 years 100m freestyle where she stormed home in a personal best time and a new Bay of Plenty record of 57.27 seconds.

This placed Donelley fourth in her age group, demonstrating how tough it is to beat the Australians in their own backyard.

She then went on to establish personal best times in her signature freestyle events with times of 27.11 seconds, 2 minutes 05.61 seconds and 4 minutes 26.35 seconds in the 50m, 200m and 400m races respectively. Not content with that, Donelley then blazed to a swift 30.86 seconds in the 50m backstroke which was another personal best time.

Baylis returned to Canberra where he represented New Zealand at last year's competition.

Baylis raced in the distance freestyle and butterfly events. His favourite 1500m freestyle produced a time of 15 minutes 58.17 seconds which was just outside his best time. He bettered his best time in the 400m freestyle to edge closer to breaking the 4-minute mark with a new time of 4 minutes 05.64 seconds. Baylis is still developing his butterfly expertise, but still managed to top his best times with a 1 minute 00.51 seconds in the 100m event, and 2 minutes 14.28 seconds in the 200m event.

Swim Rotorua head coach Alastair Johnson was also part of the New Zealand team and was proud of his two athletes.

"After four sessions of very intensive racing, we have come away with a personal best time strike rate of almost 90 per cent. Both Bianca and Paddy have excelled both in and out of the pool and have demonstrated that they are genuine international standard athletes.

"They along with seven of their Swim Rotorua team mates will be aiming to improve again at the National Short Course Championships [25m metre pool] which begins on this Sunday."