“The 800m freestyle was pretty hard but once you got into a rhythm it felt pretty good, and I was able to carry it on and the race felt better towards the end.”
Having kept pace with Adams for the first six lengths, Paige stepped up a gear from the 300m mark to take 26 seconds off her entry time and touch 9.2 seconds ahead.
She was awarded the Hodges Cup as the junior female Manawatū swimmer with the most points across both the Manawatū Age Group Championships and Manawatū Summer Open Swimming Championships.
Paige Conley with the Hodges Cup at the Lido Aquatic Centre in Palmerston North.
The Whanganui Swimming Club achieved 25 personal bests. Paige placed in the top two competitors of every event she was in.
Other Whanganui swimmers to pick up medals in open events over the weekend were 15-year-old Blake Candish who got silver in the 400m Individual Medley and bronze in the 200m Butterfly, 14-year-old Salvador Mazzieri who got silver in the 400m Freestyle, and 11-year-old Ziva Bunker who got bronze in the 200m Breaststroke.
The team does eight training sessions per week.
“It’s a lot of time in the week, and we do quite a few intense sessions,” Paige said.
“Getting to meet everyone from different clubs and the atmosphere is great, especially at bigger competitions, because everyone’s nervous and you’re talking to each other.”
The Whanganui team picked up 11 supplementary medals in the 100m age group events.
The next challenge awaiting the team is the 2024 Apollo Projects NZ National Age Group Championships which will be held in Hawke’s Bay in April.
They will also compete in the Division II Competition in Hamilton in May.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
