Rising swimming stars do battle in Taupō

Tauranga's Cameron Brown was the Boys' 14 Overall champion at the Bay of Plenty Rising Stars swim competition in Taupō. Photo / Supplied

Thirty-five Evolution Aquatics Tauranga swimmers attended the 2019 Rising Stars competition in Taupō and achieved some impressive results.

The event, held on Sunday, targets swimmers who have not yet qualified for national meets and younger swimmers.

Evolution Aquatics Tauranga (EVO) was represented by swimmers aged 8-14. Swimmers competed across a number of individual events as well as freestyle relays.

Two EVO swimmers took out overall wins for their age groups after performance points were tallied. Cameron Brown won the 14-year-old boys' and Troy Wooster won the 8-year-old boys'.

Cameron won six of his eight events, setting seven personal best times. His highlights were securing a New Zealand secondary schools qualifying time in the 100m medley and swimming sub-30 seconds for the first time in the 50m freestyle.

Troy was even more dominant winning all six of his events and setting four personal bests.

Other overall podium places were achieved with silver medals going to Henry Scholes, 11, who showed what he is capable of in the pool going through the day unbeaten with seven hard fought victories and qualifying for AIMS Games, along with Danielle Fowler, 13, and Liam Cockcroft, 13. Bronze medals went to Jessica Cha, 8, Indie Scholes, 9, Hayley Fowler, 11, Niamh Manning, 12, and Max Rickett, 13.

Henry and Hayley combined with Nick Reeder, 11, and Grace Richardson, 11, to win the junior 200m freestyle relay. The 12 and over relay team of Cameron, Danielle, Niamh and Yeonsu Na were third behind a strong Taupō combination and Swim Rotorua.

Other standout swimmers to win individual events were Gia Dumbleton, 10, swimming a strong 50m butterfly (42.19s) and 100m medley, Tia MacIntosh, 13, securing the 100/200m breaststroke double, Elliott Pugh, 13, in the 100m backstroke, Poppy Richardson, 9, in the 200m breaststroke and Jack Walford, 13, taking out the 50m and 200m breaststroke.

Coaches Riccardo Pini and Kemble Cadwaladder were both impressed with the focus of the team displaying good technical swimming, which combined with applying maximum effort in the water, resulted in the pleasing results.

- Supplied content