Classy pair make NZ squad

SYDNEY BOUND: Wanganui Swimming Club's Shannon Schimanski (pictured) and Elena Forlong have made history as the first New Zealand representatives from the Wanganui Swimming Club.PHOTOS/FILE

AFTER years of breaking local records, winning regional titles and seeing national success, two teenagers from the Wanganui Swimming Club have earned the silver fern.

Shannon Schimanski, 14 and Elena Forlong, 16, will become the club's first New Zealand representatives after being selected by Swimming NZ to race at the Australian Age Group Championships in Sydney from April 13-20.

Wanganui Collegiate's Schimanski has won numerous national age group titles in her specialist breaststroke, and will race in the 100m and 200m events in Sydney.

Wanganui High School's Forlong will compete in the 100m and 200m butterfly events after placing second at the last two national-level meets. She started under the coaching tutelage of Dave Wakeling, before carrying on with Schimanski under the watchful eye of long-time Wanganui coach Jane Lowe, then both have been mentored by Andy McLay since February last year.

It has been many years of training at the Wanganui Splash Centre, which currently is now up to nine sessions a week, to reach this level.

Maria Forlong said qualifying standards from Swimming NZ were "very challenging", requiring those selected to have reached the times seen in the top 10 of races at last year's Australian championships, with only a few selected meets in New Zealand available to do so.

"Both had to swim significantly faster than they had ever swum before, under the pressure of knowing that they were potentially racing for a place in a national team."

Schimanski, a Year 10 student who has been in competitive swimming since age 8, broke the Wanganui Open record of 1m 16s in the 100m breaststroke at the Wellington Regional Championships, coming second to Manawatu sensation Mya Rasmussen. Her effort was 0.09s better than the standard and put Schimanski's name in front of the national selectors.

"She has consistently been Wanganui's top medal winner at national and regional events in recent years and has tremendous potential," Forlong said.

Forlong, in Year 12, missed out on a qualifying time in Wellington and was a late entrant at the Central Swimming Championships in Hamilton in the last week of February.

"After a solid but unspectacular swim in the [200m butterfly] heats, she pulled out the swim of her life to date - almost three seconds faster than her heat to clock 2m 22.27s."

It was quarter of a second inside the qualifying time of 2m 22.55s as Forlong once again bettered the 200m Wanganui open record she already held. "Then there was a nervous wait of just under a fortnight while Swimming NZ crunched the numbers and decided that both were worthy of a place in the team."

Forlong said the selection of two swimmers for a national squad from a small club of just 30 swimmers was a credit not only to the teenagers, but the whole group who get up at 5am to train at the Splash Centre under McLay.

Their Subway Wanganui squad, now affiliated with Wellington swimming, are becoming more competitive at regional events, which helps push and encourage Schimanski and Forlong at training.

McLay said the team has a NZ Division 2 meet and national age group championships coming up and he is confident more outstanding results are on the way.

Among their other highlights, Schimanski holds the Wanganui open record for 50m breaststroke, and won national long and short course titles at 12, 13, and 14 year levels. She was Wanganui's junior sportsperson of 2014.

Forlong started swimming at age nine and also holds the Wanganui open records in 100m butterfly and 1500m freestyle.

Last year she won silver in the national 15 years 200m butterfly (long and short course) and silver in the 100m (short course).