The Wanganui Swimming Championships a fortnight ago marked the end of a long, successful season for all but 10 swimmers who travel to Invercargill this weekend.
The Wanganui Swimming Club squad, under coach Jane Lowe, will compete in the State Division II competition at Splash Palace in the deep south starting on Sunday.
The 10 swimmers - Ella Clark, 13, Daina Pa'a, 13, Clarissa Nowak 14, Jazmin Phillips, 14, Hannah Burroughs, 15, Eleishah Hodson, 15, Luke Gemmell, 14, Liam Cox, 15, Stefan Hannan, 15 and Liam O'Leary, 17 - will compete during four days.
Lowe said this season was particularly long for her squad of 60 that she coaches, but still had high hopes for her team heading south.
"It's been virtually a 12-month season for many of these swimmers, but they have had a good year result-wise with more to come this weekend. hopefully," Lowe said yesterday.
At the Wanganui champs, held last weekend, Shannon Schimanski's success at the NZ Juniors Championships, which included gold in the 50m breaststroke, was recognised and she was presented with the bronze medal for her third place in the 100m breaststroke from the national meet in mid-February.
In the same event at the Wanganui champs, the 12-year-old led from the start and set a new record time of 1m 20.34s, surpassing Bianca Vettise's record by 1s.
Schimanski won seven age group events at the champs with the most notable being the breaststroke, including the 50m in 37.13s and the 200m in 2m 57.94s.
Sarya Lower, 11, won five of her age group events including the 200m backstroke, 2m 52.76s, the 100m freestyle in 1m 08.42s and the 100m butterfly 1m 25.72s.
In the male breaststroke events, Jacob Smith, 15, took first place in effortless style with a 1m 13.24s in the 100m and 2m 35.58s in the 200m. Smith also showed his versatility with a strong 400m medley in 5m 05.01s and in the 1500m freestyle with a well-paced 18m 16.14s.
Smith along with several of the swimmers that raced at the National Age Group Champs in early March set new goals for this meet and achieved positive results at the end of their season.
Fourteen-year-old Laura O'Keeffe has rewritten the freestyle records during the past year, but focused at this meet on butterfly, achieving personal bests in the 200m in 2m 36.26s and 1m 09.07s in the 100m to place first. O'Keeffe's last event was the 200m freestyle where she led from the first 25m to record a 2m 12.50s, just under a second outside her personal best, but notable for her determination with a win by 20m.
Elena Forlong, 14, showed her ability across a range of events with a win in the 800m freestyle in 9m 52.23s, a personal best in the 400m medley in 5m 36.44s and also in the 100m butterfly in 1m 12.93s.
The backstroke events continue to provide excellent racing with strong competition between Nina Eades, 14, Sophie Couper, 15, and Jaimee Schimanski, 14. Eades won all three with the 200m a personal best of 2m 28.67s, the 100m in 1m 09.18s and the 50m with a 32.30s. Couper placed second and Schimanski third in all three events.
Fergus Smith, 14, achieved personal bests in all his events, winning the 200m butterfly in 2m 30.80s; 100m medley, 1m 06.06s; 50m backstroke, 30.48s; and the 100m butterfly, 1m 04.72s.
Lowe said Stefan Hannan, 15, had steadily improved throughout the year and produced positive results leading up to Division II this weekend.
Hannan also achieved personal bests on all his events and won the 800m freestyle in 9m 31.33s, the 200m backstroke in 2m 24.64s, 400m freestyle, 4m 34.95s, and his second place in the 200m freestyle in 2m 09.12s, was raced to the last stroke.
The Wanganui Swimming Club prizegiving evening is planned for May 16.