Swimming: Four lift medals as 14 records broken

Shannon Schimanski won the 14-year 50m breaststroke gold medal at the New Zealand Short Course championships in Wellington last week. PHOTO/FILE

The Subway Wanganui Swim team had a strong week in the junior grades at the New Zealand Short Course champion-ships in Wellington, which concluded on Saturday.

Coach Andy McLay was very proud of the seven-person team, particularly with the swimmers who raced mixed-age finals in the evening sessions.

Under the championship format, the medal races for the age groups are held in the morning and they double as heats for the open and mixed-age finals that night.

As they are only likely to get rankings, many clubs scratch their young medal-winning swimmers from going into the evening finals with the older competitors, but Wanganui's Elena Forlong and Laura O'Keeffe both had a go in the 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley respectively.

Forlong, 15, came sixth while O'Keeffe, 16, was eighth in their open finals, the latter a 5m 4.13s Wanganui open record.

Over the four days the club got personal bests from each of their seven swimmers, while breaking 14 Wanganui club records in the process.

In total, the top-four members earned a gold, three silvers and two bronze age group medals between them.

Shannon Schimanski, 14, won the 50m breaststroke with a local record of 33.62s, while coming second in the 100m breaststroke in another Wanganui-best of 1m 13.28s.

She was fifth in 200m breaststroke and seventh in the 50m backstroke.

Forlong earned second in the 100m butterfly in a Wanganui record 1m 5.59s, and tied the Wanganui open record of 2m 22.05s when she was second in the 200m butterfly.

She also came fifth in the 800m freestyle, seventh in 400m freestyle, and ninth in 400m individual medley.

Schimanski and Forlong then raced as part of the Wellington Regional Under 15 team for the 4x100m medley relay, coming fourth after Schimanski did the breaststroke leg and Forlong the butterfly.

O'Keeffe, as previously, took on a big programme at the championships with her best the third placing in the 800m freestyle in a Wanganui open record of 9m 10.34s, while she got another local record of 4m 26.24s for her fourth in the 400m freestyle.

There was also a seventh in 200m butterfly, sixth in 400 individual medley, seventh in 100m backstroke, 10th in 200m individual medley (2m 26.26s Wanganui record), and ninth in 200m freestyle.

Jacob Smith, 16, was the other medal winner, with third in the 200m breaststroke in a Wanganui open record 2m 23.87s.

He also got Wanganui open records coming fourth in 100m breaststroke (1m 7.68s) and fifth in the 400m individual medley (4m 51.98), along with an age group record in 100m individual medley.

Sarya Lower, 13, got Wanganui age group records with her ninth in 50m freestyle (28.28s) and 100m individual medley (1m 11.51s).

Sophie Couper, 16, was fourth in 200m backstroke and 10th in 100m backstroke.

For the team events, Forlong, O'Keeffe and Couper combined with Jaimee Schimanski, 16, to come eighth in the 16-years-and-over 4x200m freestyle club relay.