Swimming: Podium sees lots of action

It's been all action for our athletes at Swim Rotorua.

We recently took a team to compete at the popular Taranaki Swimming Championships at the Stratford TSB Pool.

Once again our athletes stepped up and embraced the experience to grab a treasure chest full of medals.

Leading the way was 10-year-old Otonga Rd Primary School student Milla Theobald, who grabbed golds in the 50m butterfly and 200m backstroke. Despite competing in an incredible 21 races, Milla showed great enthusiasm and style to also pick up a silver medals in the 100m and 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 200m medley.

Also reaching the top of the podium was Jack Weston, who had a titanic battle all the way in the Open 400m medley with teammate William Spear. Both posted excellent times, Jack just in front with a winning time of 5.11.50.

He went on to smash his best time in the 200 medley to take the silver medal, then picked up three more medals in his signature 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events.

William Spear, racing in the boys' 13-14 years' age group, had a busy weekend, his best results coming with silvers in the 400m medley and 200m breaststroke, and bronze medals in the 100m and 200m butterfly. William also dropped his 1500m freestyle time to 18:10.17, which was just outside the qualifying time for the New Zealand short-course championships. Fast-improving James Baldwin continues to impress, especially in his favourite breaststroke events. James capped a fine swim meet with a complete set of silver medals in the boys' 11-12 years' 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke.

Distance stalwart David Boles raced a 1500m freestyle worthy of any international athlete. David achieved a time of 18:05.80, a drop of 22 seconds on his best. David also had a busy programme, with his best placing coming in the boys' 13-14 years' 200m butterfly, where he took the silver.

Bay of Plenty record holder Bianca Donnelley, who celebrated her 11th birthday last week, stepped up a gear to compete against the 11-12 year girls. Showing class and consistency in her freestyle events, Bianca made several finals, plus picked up a great silver in the 100m butterfly.

Swim Rotorua were again on the medley podium with Ana Nagera, 13, grabbing an excellent silver.

Paddy Baylis showed great versatility with his events, which were mostly achieved in big best times. Paddy stormed home in the boys' 13-14 years' 100m backstroke to take a deserved bronze. Teammate Joe Nagera made a big breakthrough on his 50m backstroke sprint to take another bronze for Swim Rotorua.

Josh Balmer (bronze in the boys' 10 years' 50m butterfly) and Emily Spear (bronze in the girls' 10 years' 100m breaststroke) reaffirmed that Swim Rotorua continue to do a great job in developing all-round athletes.

I am really pleased with what we have achieved in Taranaki. We wanted to stretch the athletes more with some additional racing in tough conditions.

The athletes really got stuck in, raced their hearts out and supported each other to the end.

We are looking forward to our next big challenge, which is the Bay of Plenty Championships at the end of August.