SWIMMING - Young Ashlee makes a splash at national champs

KAMO swimmer Ashlee Crane continues to build her reputation in the national arena by winning gold at the New Zealand Age Group Championships at Christchurch's QEII pool.
Crane's win in the Girls' 13-year-old 100m Butterfly on Friday night was the outstanding result in a good weekend for the 15-strong Northland team.
The Kamo swimmer improved on her heat time of 1:10.01 in the final to post a winning national time of 1:08.81, more than seven-tenths of a second faster than second-placed Ali Clareburt of Wellington.
Crane also won a bronze medal in the Girls' 13-year-old 50m Butterfly on Wednesday night with a time of 30.70 and followed that up with another bronze in the 200m fly final on Saturday.
The other medal winner in the Northland squad, which drew swimmers from five clubs in the Northland region, was Bay of Islands swimmer Carla Marsh.
Marsh also won bronze in the Friday evening finals session. She had the quickest qualifying time from the heats of the New Zealand swimmers of 2:16.12, but was beaten in the final by New Plymouth's Brydie Whitehead and Christchurch's Maria Rychkova.
The team were thrilled with Crane's and Marsh's medals. Northland team manager Graham Cate said it had been a few years since the last Northland gold in the pool at the age group (13-18) championships, but he said the rest of teams' performances at the meet shouldn't be overshadowed.
Crane's coach Dave Girbin said the presence of champion swimmers from Japan and New South Wales had added an extra dimension to the competition.
"It was great to see them (the international swimmers) swim so well and it inspired our swimmers to think about how they could take their performance to the next level to compete against them in the future," he said.
Girbin said the Northland swimmers would all be back in the pool today training for the upcoming national open championships, that will also double as Olympic qualifiers for Beijing later in the year.