Melita Raravula stands out in pool

Northwave swimmer Melita Raravula dominated her age group at the National Short Course Swimming Championships winning six medals.

The 15-year-old was part of a five-strong Northland contingent, coached by Monica Cooper and John Clarke, which won eight medals in total at the recent four-day meet at Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre.

After a short break following Raravula's New Zealand Open Swimming Championships campaign in April, the Pompallier College Year 11 student was back in the pool, targeting the short course meet, held a month earlier than usual due to the Rugby World Cup. After introducing the 100m Butterfly event to her programme at the NZ Age Groups in March, where she won silver, Raravula has invested a lot of training time into perfecting butterfly, Cooper

said. Cooper is also Raravula's coach at Northwave Swimming Club.

For last week's short course meet, Cooper and Raravula decided to give the gruelling 200m fly race a crack after qualifying at a recent Bay of Islands Swimming Club meeting.

"We wanted to build on all her skills - she has always been strong in the 50m fly, and often a sprinter can't hold onto race the 200m," Cooper explained.

Raravula's early season training in the pool paid off. She won gold in the 15-year-old girls 50m and 100m butterfly, and silver in the 200m fly.

"It was very pleasing to see Melita could hold onto all of the distances. She was a stroke away from the gold in the 200m fly - which we were happy with considering her inexperience racing this event," Cooper said.

While she had started to make headway in butterfly, Cooper said Raravula was still building on her backstroke discipline to be truly proficient racing the 200m and 400m Individual Medleys. Despite this, Raravula stormed home to take out the 200m IM and was second in the 100m IM. She also won bronze in the 100m breaststroke and recorded a fourth in the 50m breaststroke and a sixth in the 50m freestyle.

During the meeting, she also broke six open Northland records and eight age group records.

All in all, it was a very successful meeting for Raravula who will now hit the books preparing for school exams, as well as building towards her target race meets - Northland Championships in January at Dargaville, followed by the National Long Course Age Groups in Wellington, and National Open Swimming Championships at Waitakere - both meets are in March.

Meanwhile, Bay of Island Swimming Club's Jayne Clarke and Ashlee Crane, claimed a bronze each in the girls' 16-years-old 50m freestyle and 200m butterfly respectively after fine performances in the pool.

Clarke also made the final of the girls' 15-years-old 100m freestyle and placed seventh, and was also seventh in the 50m butterfly, and gained an eighth place in the 100m butterfly. Crane, competing in the girls' 16-years-old 50m backstroke, finished a credible fifth, she was eighth in the 50m butterfly and ninth in the 100m butterfly, and finished 10th in the 100m freestyle event.