Baywave hosted 190 swimmers from all over the Bay of Plenty for the Otumoetai Winter Swim meet. The attraction of swimming at Baywave and to perhaps get some fast times leading into the Bay of Plenty Short Course Champs and NZ Short Course Champs helped bolster the numbers.
Individuals from 16 clubs swam more than 1000 events. Otumoetai fielded the largest squad with 54 swimmers competing. Some personal bests were scored by Aleisha Carter, Ruby Matthews, and Daniel Shanahan, whilst Joshua Pickett continued his dominance in the breaststroke and individual medley events.
Baywave is known as being a fast pool and this was shown by a number of individuals having great swims. Otumoetai can now boast 10 NZ Short Course qualifiers and a qualifier for the Victorian Age Group champs in Melbourne. Benji Rowe secured his place for Melbourne with his 200-metre butterfly time and along with Blake Horne from Greerton, will represent the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki in the AquaKnights squad. Other Otumoetai swimmers including Ruby Mathews, Josh Pickett, Tom Chaney, and Rhianna Maxwell are knocking on the door for qualifying.
Thomas Chaney swam a personal best of 1m 16s in the 100m breaststroke and Tristain Eleisen achieved personal bests in IM and butterfly events.
A highlight for the Otumoetai Swimmers was seeing their head coach Stefan Swanepoel compete in the 50m freestyle. An ex-South African representative and with a NZ champion brother in Corney, it was fair to say there was some expectation on him to perform. He did not disappoint with a blistering 27sec 50m freestyle swim.
