Outstanding results for students at Long Course Champs
Outstanding results for students at the Wellington Long Course Championships.
The Whanganui Swimming Club may now come under the Swimming Manawatu banner, but that didn’t stop them going on a medal raid in Wellington.
Even though it was a smaller than usual Toyota Whanganui swim team travelling south for the Wellington Regional Long Course Championships, the results achieved over the long weekend were outstanding.
With a lot of the familiar names having moved on to university or concentrating on other endeavours, a new group of swimmers proved they are more than capable of maintaining or even exceeding standards set by their predecessors.
The breakout star of the meet was 13-year-old Jack Robertson from Waverley, who surprised everyone (except coach Andy McLay) with some brilliant swims to not only qualify for National Age Group Champs (NAGS) in April, but also to win a gold medal in the 200m freestyle, silvers in the 100m and 400 freestyle, the 50m and 200m breaststroke and a bronze in the 100m breaststroke. Robertson swum personal best times in every event he raced and improved his time in all of the finals he swam.
Also in top form was Cheyenne Nightingale (13) who was the Whanganui club’s top points scorer and worked through a heavy race schedule picking up more NAGS times and winning gold medals in the 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly (and was also the fastest 13 year old in the 15 and under age group 800m freestyle), a silver in the 400m IM and bronze in the 100m butterfly and the 200m freestyle.
Cayden Earles (13) underlined her potential winning gold in the 50m backstroke, silvers in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke and a bronze in the 400m IM, and Georgia Abraham, who has also just turned 13, gained bronze medals in 50m and 100m backstroke events.
Fourteen-year-old Ethan Bryers gained silvers in the gruelling 400m and 800m freestyle as well as contesting the 200m butterfly, 400m IM and 1500m freestyle, and Shannon Schimanski, in one of her last meets before heading off to university in Wellington, won gold in the 18 and over 100m backstroke, silver in the 50m and 100m breaststroke behind Commonwealth Games representative Bronagh Ryan and the 100m freestyle and bronzes in the 200m IM, the 50m backstroke and the 50m freestyle.
Whanganui’s other medallist was 16-year-old Amelia Cronin who gained a silver in the 400m IM.
The other swimmers in the team, Lucy Somerville (13), John Bryant (13) and Lennart Nowak (15) all swam great races with Somerville posting a NAGS qualifying time in the 50m backstroke in placing fourth (but requiring a 100m time to be eligible to attend the meet), and she and Bryant both qualifying for finals in events.
The next meet for the Toyota team’s junior swimmers is the Hawera carnival before the whole squad will travel to Manawatu for what is now the club’s regional championships and a another chance to pick up qualifying times for the national meets.
Swimming
Whanganui Chronicle 24/1/19