Swimming: Trio speed up against tougher competition

Rotorua swimmer Emily Spear was one of three youngsters from Swim Rotorua taking part in the Auckland Junior Swimming champs. Photo/File.

Rotorua swim coach Alastair Johnson says his swimmers know all about being thrown into the deep end.

The head coach at Swim Rotorua, Johnson said he had no trouble taking a small swim team to the Auckland Junior Swimming champs at West Wave Pool in Henderson at the weekend.

"We wanted to lock horns with the Auckland swimmers to bring out a little bit more competitiveness in our athletes. They certainly did that and posted some great times."

The team of three girls consisted of 11-year-old Bianca Donelley, and 10-year-olds Milla Theobald and Emily Spear.

Johnson said Donelley continued her winning ways with excellent racing over the two days.

The youngster won gold medals in both the 100m and 200m freestyle.

Her winning times of 1min 8.75sec and 2min 29.20sec respectively were both personal bests.

Donelley was just pipped for gold in the 50m freestyle, but had the consolation of setting another personal best of 31.58sec.

In the 400m freestyle she displayed a big improvement, and just missed the Bay of Plenty record with a time of 5min 12.41sec.

This placed her eighth overall in a combined 12 years and under age group.

Theobald also produced some great performances.

The best one came in the 50m butterfly, where she smashed her best time by over 7sec to record an excellent 39.83sec to place sixth.

She managed to improve her position in the 200m butterfly with fourth place after clocking 3min 46.05sec.

She also finished seventh in both the 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly events.

Spear was also racing in the 10 year age group and did particularly well in the breaststroke events, Johnson said.

She came home in 16th place in the 200m breaststroke, and backed that up with a 22nd place in the 50m breaststroke and 21st place in the 100m breaststroke.

Spear produced a cracking 200m freestyle to break the 3min-barrier for the first time, with an excellent performance of 2min 52.41sec to take ninth place.

Johnson was understandably upbeat with his three charges.

The three Swim Rotorua girls will now be looking forward to, and working hard, towards the Junior Nationals being held in Wellington in February next year, he said.