Swim Rotorua proudly hosted their annual winter short course meet at the Aquatic Centre at the weekend, and it was a great turnout from swim clubs across the Bay of Plenty and Waikato. It added to a great atmosphere and some fast racing.
Swim Rotorua picked up an amazing 52 first places.
Leading the way was 10-year-old Bianca Donnelly who was unbeaten in her age group to scoop eight titles. Her best performance came in the 200m freestyle where she again established a new Bay of Plenty record with a time of 2.26.53. Bianca also produced a fast 100m backstroke to set another Bay record with an outstanding 1.18.84.
Fast improving 13-year-old David Boles enjoyed a superlative day with an excellent display of endurance racing and tenacity to grab a clean sweep in the 200, 400, 800 and 1500m freestyle - all in best times. His 400m freestyle time was inside the qualifying time for the New Zealand National Short Course Championships to be held in September.
Fellow squad member William Spear had a busy schedule with nine individual races. William came top in six of those, with the pick of the bunch coming in the 200m butterfly. Erika Pedersen showed she is coming back into form after missing a large part of the season due to injury, by winning six events in the 16-years plus age group.
Twelve-year old Ana Nagera had a clean sweep in the three breaststroke events and also picked up first places in the 400m freestyle and 400m medley. Not to be outdone, twin brother Joe Nagera also enjoyed some great racing in taking another five firsts - this time in the freestyle, butterfly and backstroke events.
Jack Weston displayed great technique and strength in his signature breaststroke events where he picked up three titles along with wins in the 400m medley and the 200m freestyle. Josh Ensor showed some good speed in winning two events in the boys 14-years 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle.
New kid on the block was James Baldwin who sped to a clean sweep in the 11-years breaststroke events. Jude Carpenter also made a breakthrough and picked up first place in the boys 11-years 400m freestyle. Nine-year-old Lily Gordon was a popular winner in the girls 200m breaststroke, as was Samantha Irving who produced some fantastic skills to grab first place in the 11-years 50m butterfly.
Other first place grabbers were Emily Spear who won the 10-years 200m breaststroke (3.54.17), Jacob Stubbing who won the boys 11-years 200m medley (3.16.02) and Milla Theobold who won the 10-years 400m freestyle (5.43.61).
A new event (and possibly a world first) was the introduction of the Relay Skins. This proved to be a fitting and exciting finale to the swim meet with clubs competing in a knockout relay event. Congratulations to the quartet from the Matamata Swim Club who were victorious and went home happy with the $300 cash prize.
It has been another successful swim meet for us. Most of the athletes have been doing more training over the past two weeks. Despite the additional training loads, they have all without exception, raced their hearts out. I have been pleased with their improved competitiveness and race skills. It's also been really encouraging to see more of our youngsters coming through and having a taste of success. As always, we will be encouraging them and the rest of the team to continually step up and improve.
On Friday our swimmers will travel to Taranaki for their winter short course champs and it should be a lot of fun.
Alastair Johnson is the head coach for Swim Rotorua.