SNZ Events
Swim Rotorua was once again in fine form at the popular Taupo Xcelerate Meet.
Despite a low key early season build-up, the Swim Rotorua outfit displayed increasing strength in depth at the meet last weekend.
Bursting through to take an extraordinary haul of eight gold medals was Emily Spear, 11.
Emily dominated the freestyle events to take a clean sweep of 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle - the latter two new Bay of Plenty records with times of 10min 2.70sec and 19min 18.08sec.
Emily re-wrote the record book with a new standard of 5:45.38 in the girls 11-years 400m individual medley.
Emily also took the gold medal in the short 100m medley, and then further golds in her traditional 200m breaststroke and 200m backstroke.
Bianca Donelley also set a plethora of best times and broke two BOP records.
These came in the girls 12-years 100m and 400m freestyle with times of 1:01.27 and 4:38.85 respectively.
Bianca was just a whisker away from establishing a new record in the 400m medley as she continues to develop her weaker strokes to match her dominant freestyle.
However, she did manage to take solid victories in the 100m medley, 100m butterfly and 800m freestyle which augurs well for the rest of the short-course season.
Also chipping in with three new BOP breaststroke records was Jack Weston, 17.
His times of 31.37 (50m), 1:07.30 (100m) and 2:27.35 (200m) all eclipsed his old records set earlier this year.
Jack showed great technique to take home two more gold medals in the 200m medley and 400m freestyle.
Other top performers included Paddy Baylis, who won six gold medals, and Damon Cowie who won five gold medals.
Teammates David Boles (100m backstroke), Tara Chemis (800m freestyle), Rachel Mead (200m backstroke and 1500m freestyle), William Spear (1500m freestyle) and Milla Theobald (1500m freestyle) all added to the golden treasury with great wins in their respective events.
The club juniors were in fabulous form to show off their speed and style.
Winning their coveted medals were Sam Baldwin, Allie Clarke, Huntar Clarke, Theo Harvey, Caitlin Lang, Rebecca Lyall, Lina Stahlhut and Bailee Swinyard.
It was a tremendous two days of racing from us.
We are just easing back into some meaningful training, and to do so well off that is really encouraging.
Our next event takes place in mid-July with the BOP Championships and we are already looking forward to that.
-Alastair Johnson is the head coach at Swim Rotorua.
