Masterton swim trio heralded

Three Masterton Swimming Club members, James Pope, William Prior and Tim Smith, competed with distinction at the recent Australian age group championships at the Chandler Aquatic Centre in Brisbane.
It was the only the second time that Wairarapa swimmers had participated in this event, considered to be amongst the most competitive of its kind anywhere in the world.
Just to qualify to compete there is, in fact, a big achievement and Masterton coach Jiri Mikolas actually had five of his squad attain qualifying standards
In the end it was Pope, Prior and Smith who took up the challenge, all three travelling to Brisbane as part of a West Auckland-based development squad coached by former Masterton identity Donna Bouzaid.
Prior was also a member of the New Zealand 15yrs and under squad and as such was under pressure to meet the exacting requirements of swimming the qualifying times for this squad again, a feat he achieved without difficulty. Indeed he did even better than that, also bettering the 16yrs qualifying time in the 400m freestyle.
The highlight of the Australian championships for the Masterton contingent was undoubtedly Prior's bronze medal in the 200m freestyle.
Originally seeded sixth in this event he recorded a personal best time of 1min 57.27s in his heat to qualify with second fastest time for the final.
There, he swum an exceptionally well constructed race to actually beat the top seed and take the bronze medal in 1min 56.56secs, well inside the 15yrs national squad time, and less than 0.9secs off the 16yrs national squad time.
Prior also swam well in the 400m freestyle where he was originally seeded fifth. Again he qualified for the final and was only beaten out of his second bronze medal by fifteen one-hundredths of a second. As it happened he started his sprint home a little too late and although making huge ground on the fading three placegetter just failed to bridge the gap.
His time, however, was a personal best, improving his excellent national age groups time by 1.8secs, and at 4min 6.34secs it was 0.33secs faster than the national 16yrs squad qualifying mark.
Prior's two other main events were the 200m butterfly and the 1500m freestyle. In the 200m fly he was seeded ninth and won his heat in a personal best time of 2min 10.50secs by using a new race strategy which meant he had plenty more to give in the final.
Unfortunately, however, Prior was denied a place in the final despite being the seventh fastest qualifier.
It was discovered after Prior's heat that one of the Australian-based swimmers who had bettered his time by just three hundredths of a second had, in fact, not met Australia's swimming residential requirements and therefore was deemed a "visitor" And with two only of them being allowed in a final Prior was ruled out because he would have been visitor number three.
Prior himself was disappointed with his performance in the 1500m freestyle. Recent training times had pointed to him faring well there but he failed to produce his best effort on this occasion. His time was, however, still fast enough to give him sixth placing and it was inside the 15yrs national squad qualifying mark, the fourth time he had managed that feat in the 1500m freestyle this season.
Prior leaves next week for Auckland where he will train under Bouzaid for seven weeks in preparation for his involvement in a tri series in Melbourne, Wagaa Wagga and Canberra as a member of the New Zealand trans-tasman team. There he will again be pitted against many of the Australia's best age group swimmers.
It has only been due to the support given Prior by the likes of Bouzaid and her West Auckland Aquatics Club and his school, Rathkeale College, who have developed an individual programme for him while he is away, that tri-series involvement became a reality for him. Once it is over he will return to his own club and school in Masterton.
JAMES POPE
James Pope, who has competed strongly all season, continued to demonstrate his potential at the Australian championships.
Pope was a gold medal winner at the New Zealand division two meet at the end of last season and this season has improved to the point where he won a silver medal at the national first division age group champs and qualified to compete in Brisbane in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke and the 200m individual medley.
This was Pope's first taste of swimming at international level and like all first timers he found it an excellent learning experience.
He was unable to produce his best time in his first event, the 200m individual medley, on the first day but his nerves calmed somewhat after that so that he came very close to personal best efforts in both the 200m and 100m breaststroke events. His performance placed him in the top 15 of boys in his breaststroke age group in Australasia.
TIM SMITH
Tim Smith, whose birthday had come around since the national age group championships, had to compete as a "young" 15-year-old in a tough division. His backstroke age group in Australia includes notables such as Daniel Arnamnart, the current Australian 15yrs record holder, and a number of others who compete the 100m backstroke in sub-60secs. Which is motoring when you consider most 15-year-olds are pleased to break that barrier in the 100m freestyle!
Smith's rise to this level has been rapid as he is only in his second season as a competitive swimmer. In Brisbane he registered a personal best time of 2min 18.37secs in the 200m backstroke, which was 1.6secs than he had managed before In his 100m backstrok event he also recorded a personal best time and improved his ranking.