SNZ Events
Epic Swim
High Performance
SNZ Events
Epic Swim
High Performance
After two days of racing at the New South Wales Open Water Championships the NZ Junior Open Water team has had some very encouraging results. In the 10 km event held on Saturday 1st December, the NZ contingent picked up 4 medals led by Grace Sommerville (Ashburton) taking gold in the 16year old Girl's event, Caitlin Wall (HPK) and Paige Schendelaar-Kemp (HPK) winning bronze in their age groups. Isaac Foote from Wellington HPU secured the silver medal in the Men's open event.
The other team members, Bradly Catto, Ben Ruback, Liana Smith and Courtney Carson all finished in the top 6 of their age groups improving on their national times in trying conditions of 41 degrees. The water temperature was also a challenge being close to 29 degrees.
Day two saw the 5 km event in slightly cooler conditions. Grace Sommerville once again led the way with a gold medal followed by Ben Ruback (Masterton) and Isaac Foote (HPU Wellington) picking up silver medals and Caitlin Wall (HPK) taking out the bronze medal. The NZ team came out with strong showing backing up the 10k event. Paige Schendelaar-Kemp, Liana Smith (HPK), Bradley Catto (Hokonui), Courtney Carson (SZR) and Cameron Voykovich (St Paul's) finished in the top 6 in their age groups.
Open Water Programme Manager, Philip Rush, was impressed with determination of the team. "With two days of hard racing and challenging conditions the NZ team results were outstanding and the future of Open Water in NZ looks very promising" says Rush.
The NZ team now goes into camp in Sydney with an Australian equivalent team for 4 intensive days of training. This includes pool sessions, skills and team building alongside Australian and NZ top Open Water coaches.
Philip Rush is hoping to make this an annual event. "This is the start of an exciting concept that is mutually beneficial to both countries to develop their Open Water Programmes. This is giving the young athletes the skills that are needed to develop their racing in Open Water events in the future."
