Northland will send its biggest team for several years to this year's New Zealand junior swimming championships and Swim Northland President Kim McCahon doesn't think it's a co-incidence.
She's certain the 40-strong team - around twice its normal size - has come around because of improved access for Northland's swimmers to
a 50m pool.
The opening of the new 50m pool at Dargaville has already fixed the town as the centre of swimming in Northland and McCahon hopes the new trend will continue.
"Normally the team size sits around that 20 mark, so I think you can put that down to having a new pool. In the past families have had to travel to Auckland to go to the various meets down there to get 50m pool experience but now they no longer have to," she said.
"Our children in the last month have had three 50m meets up here to compete in and that's helped them reach qualifying times," she said.
The national junior championships are for swimmers aged 12 years and under - an age group that McCahon said enjoys the 50m pool because they often struggle with turns.
She said the size of the teams that would be sent to the upcoming division two age-group nationals and the age-group nationals had also increased.
There are 21 boys and 19 girls in the team with 29 from the Whangarei district and 11 from other areas of Northland.
The top-ranked swimmers in the team are Whangarei Club 10-year-old Ellie Eastwood, who is ranked No1 in three of her events, the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke and fourth in the 200m freestyle.
Northwave's Snapper Gulick is another highly-ranked swimmer with top two rankings in the 12-year-old 100m and 200m butterfly, while Bream Bay's Seth Faoagali is ranked fourth in the 10-year-old 50m breaststroke.
