OUTSTANDING: Wanganui Swim Team athletes Cayden Earles (left), Georgia Abraham and Nikki Forlong were all smiles after the national junior championships at the weekend.PHOTO/SUPPLIED
OUTSTANDING: Wanganui Swim Team athletes Cayden Earles (left), Georgia Abraham and Nikki Forlong were all smiles after the national junior championships at the weekend.PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Subway Wanganui Swim Team athletes returned home from the New Zealand Junior Championships at the weekend with a bronze medal and host of personal best performances and goals achieved.
Georgia Abraham produced an outstanding swim to pick up a bronze medal in the girls 10-years 50m butterfly in a Whanganuirecord time of 35.91s. She also posted personal best times placing 5th in the 100m freestyle, 9th in the 100m backstroke and 10th in the 50m freestyle.
Cayden Earles, also 10, was perhaps the unluckiest swimmer in the competition not to pick up a medal after placing 4th in the 100m butterfly, just 0.01 of a second off bronze, and posting a 5-second personal best in the process. She also placed 6th in the 50m butterfly, 12th in the 200m individual medley with a 4-second personal best, 14th in the 100m breaststroke and 15th in the 50m breaststroke.
The third swimmer, 10-year-old Nikki Forlong, had two solid swims in the 50m and 100m backstroke, achieving her personal goal with a top-20 placing in the 100m backstroke.
Coach Andy McLay said it was significant Whanganui was represented by three swimmers in the youngest category at the Owen Glen Aquatic Centre in Auckland.
"It shows the structures we've put in place to cater for the juniors here are working," McLay said yesterday.
Since his wife, Anna, has come on board to look after the 12-and-under swimmers, results have been forthcoming.
"Along with Anna, Splash Centre manager Dave Campbell and Christine Strichen from the Aquajet learn-to-swim programme, we are developing a pathway for the younger guys to come through to competitive swimming and the result at the junior nationals proves it is working. The Whanganui team finished 36th overall and there were only three of them when some of the larger clubs had 30-plus," McLay said.
