High hopes for swim team

Wairarapa swimmers should make a big impact at the national youth and open swimming championships in Christchurch this week, despite their competition including members of New Zealand's Melbourne Commonwealth Games team.
Katie Brasell, Bridget Maher, Ashley McDougall, Tyson Hullena, William Prior and Tim Smith will enter 34 events in total and providing they perform up to their rankings they should make as many as 27 age group finals as well as quite a number of open finals.
To have a team of this calibre is a credit to their coaches Jiri Mikolas and Russell Geange and the hours of work, at its peak reaching 28 hours per week, that the swimmers put in.
Among this squad, along with James Pope who will soon return from a serious knee injury, they own 52 of the 72 short and long course under-16 and senior Wairarapa records, all of them broken in the last 15 months.
McDougall, 17, is ranked fifth in New Zealand in the 400m freestyle. She annihilated New Zealand representative Shannon Clayton and Tash Hind in January at the Wellington championships to win the over female 16yrs and over crown. This feat was achieved through tactical nous which saw her position herself handily in each race before attacking on the turns and finishing strongly.
McDougall is ranked in the top 10 in each of her races (17-18yrs) with her main chances for medals being in the 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and the 50m butterfly.
Prior, 16, is a medal hope in each of his six races. He exhibits the same racing style as McDougall, being capable of accelerating several times in a race and attacking the turns in aggressive fashion.
Named New Zealand Swimmer of the Meet twice at last year's transtasman tests, Prior has a top 10 ranking in three open events 200m and 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly, but his form will be dictated to a degree by his recovery from a shoulder injury which kept him out of the pool for the whole of December and from a full level of training for nearly two months earlier this year.
Hullena, 17, is known as the "iron man" of Wairarapa swimming, an uncompromising competitor who never gives it away. He is ranked in the top 10 in the difficult combined 17-18yrs are group in six out of his eight races and is seen as a strong medal chance in the 1500m freestyle.
Maher, 17 is ranked 11th in two of her races with her speciality being the long distance freestyle events over 400m and 800m. In the last six weeks she has developed real speed in her shorter races in training and is capable of showing sharp improvement in Christchurch.
Brasell, 16, is ranked ninth in her favourite event, the 200m backstroke, while the "baby" of the Wairarapa team is Smith, who turned 16 last Friday. He attended the national age group championships in the 13-15yrs division three weeks ago and made six finals among the most promising bunch of 15-year-olds New Zealand has had over the past decade. He has a tough assignment against older rivals this time but is still capable of a medal in the 200m backstroke.
Straight after the Christchurch championships Prior and Smith will carry on to Sydney with former Wairarapa coach Donna Bouzaid and her multi-club squad which will compete at the Australian age group championships which get under way on April 19. They will then rejoin the Masterton squad to begin the new season's training on May 1