2017 NZ Division II Competition

#teamcrayola from L:  Reuben, Jacob, Skye, Cate Angelina, Zara :-)

 

More than 470 swimmers from 101 clubs converged on Rotorua at the beginning of March for the NZ Division II Competition that was held at the Rotorua Aquatic Centre. Nelson South sent a team of 6 swimmers to the 4 day meet - and they came home with some outstanding results!  

Right from the Opening Ceremony, the meet had a great atmosphere.  The seating was close to the pool so everyone was close to the action - and all teams had their cheer squads working overtime with loud support from all sides of the pool.  The swimming was live-streamed and the poolside commentary of the racing added to the excitement of the meet.  The meet was swum in an indoor 25m pool, but the facility also featured an outside thermally heated 50m pool so all swimmers had the opportunity to warm up and loosen before and after each race.

Jacob had an incredible meet - winning gold medals in the 400m and 800m free events with exciting finishes in both.  In the closest of finishes, he touched ahead of his opponent by 0.02 seconds to take the 400m free title, and knocked an incredible 48.72 seconds off his 1500m time to finish just outside the qualifying time for NAGs to take the gold!  He was also just out-touched to finish 4th in the 50 breast and also placed 5th in the 100 breast.  All up he swam 6 pbs from 9 events!  Congratulations Jacob!

Zara had a big program with 10 events across the 4 days - but rose to the challenge and took out the silver medal for 200 fly on the same day that she finished 4th in the 800m free!  She also placed 4th in the 400m free and 5th in the 400IM with an impressive 5 second pb.  Overall Zara recorded 5 pbs from 10 swims, but swam within 1 second of her best times for the other 5 events!  Great meet Zara :-)

Reuben had 9 events across the program.  He started the meet with a good pb in the 100 breast to make the final where he placed 8th.  And finished the meet in style by taking the bronze medal in the 1500m free event :-) Overall Reuben swam 4 pb's from his 9 swims.

Angelina had a solid meet with good swims in the 100IM and 200IM events (pb in the 100) and was a strong member of the girls relay team who performed really well given that the age group was under 18's!  Cate and Skye had recently swum at NZ Juniors and backed up their strong performances in Timaru with more pbs in Rotorua - Cate recorded 3 pbs from 5 swims and Skye recorded 5 pbs from 8 swims.  A great experience for all of them!

Full results here and meet photos here.  

* nb.  You will see in the results that the SNM team results are included.  The report has been generated on non-converted times (that is, short course pbs). This bumps up the number of pbs for some of our swimmers and makes Jacob's 1500m swim even more impressive with a 75.33 second pb on his winning swim :-)

 

Thanks so much to Pub Charity for your fantastic donation for accommodation costs for the team.  Your support is always appreciated.