Swim star presented with rare honour at school

Holly Marshall has huge potential for competitive swimming. Photo/Bevan Conley

Holly Marshall is making waves with her swimming and on Tuesday the 11-year-old was the first girl at Huntley School to be presented with the headmaster's colours for her achievements.

At the weekend, in the State New Zealand Junior (12 years and under) championships in Wellington, Holly won gold in the 200-metre and 100-metre backstroke, silver in the 50-metre backstroke and bronze in the 200-metre medley.

Huntley School in Marton opened its doors to girls this year for the first time in 117 years.

Holly was ranked 4th in New Zealand before she went to the championships, but yesterday did not know what her points for times were, and where she now sat in the ranking.

In June she will attend the New Zealand development squad meet in Rotorua for three days.

Holly has been swimming competitively for three years with coach Trevor Nicholls, who says "she takes all the challenges in her stride".

Mr Nicholls said Holly was technically very good and had great ability to race at the level of the other swimmers she swam against.

Mr Nicholls said he has known for a long time that Holly had huge potential, but he's not pushing her.

His style is that "it's all about today".

Holly's mother Rachel said she has been swimming since "day one".

Holly said she practised five times a week for up to two hours, and she'd like to carry on swimming for as long as she can.