Whanganui pair on podium
WHS students Alex Forlong and Michael Hiroti flew the flag for the Toyota Whanganui Swim team at the NZ Division 2 competition in Rotorua this week.
Despite being a club squad of only two, accompanied by one manager, the teenagers claimed enough medals and top A Final placings between them for Whanganui to finish 36th overall of the 84 clubs represented.
The competition was held from Saturday through to Tuesday.
Hiroti, 16, and the least experienced member of the Whanganui senior team, picked up two silver medals on Day 1 of his first national meet for the 50m butterfly and 100m individual medley respectively.
Spokesman Neil Forlong said his butterfly time was just over 28 seconds, which is at qualifying standard for the national age group championships, however, Swimming NZ rules state a swimmer must qualify for that event in more than just 50m distance races, so Hiroti had to look to the 100m butterfly later in the week.
Alex Forlong, whose specialist events were also on the latter days, started the competition well with some personal best times as she came fourth in the 200m backstroke and 7th in the 400m freestyle.
She followed up on a quieter Sunday, which was also her 16th birthday, to place fifth in the 200m IM for another personal best.
On a flat out Monday, Hiroti raced the 200m butterfly for only the second time in his young career, along with the 100m freestyle, while Alex Forlong only had a 15 minute break between the 800m freestyle timed final and the 200m butterfly heats.
Both progressed to their finals, where Hiroti picked up a silver medal in the 200m butterfly, then watched Alex Forlong put together a perfect display of pacing in her 200m butterfly, as she swept past the field over the second half of the race to claim gold, slashing eight seconds off her personal best in 2m 34.48s.
This unexpectedly qualified her for the national age group championships and came shortly after her fifth placing in the 800m freestyle.
The last day of racing on Tuesday, Hiroti beat his personal best by four seconds in the 100m butterfly heats, with 1m 3.76s qualifying him for national age group, and had another Top 10 finish in the 50m freestyle.
He returned for the butterfly A Final that evening and came fourth, with his time being just outside his new PB as four swimmers qualified for nationals.
Alex Forlong entered her favoured 400 individual medley and after sitting back in third during the butterfly leg, she turned it on during the backstroke to hit the lead at the 150m mark.
Establishing a lead of a couple of body lengths, Forlong held off the chasers during the breastroke and freestyle legs to pick up her second gold and take six seconds off her PB at 5m 25.91s, qualifying for nationals.
Hiroti and Forlong will now join their team mates already heading to Wellington and the NZ age group championships in two weeks time.
They are Shannon Schimanski, Sarya Lower, Niamh Hogan and Amelia Cronin.
By Staff Reporter
Wanganui Chronicle 10/3/17