Swimmers grab limelight

Carterton Swimming Club members were very much in the limelight at the recent Wellington short course championships, returning home with 16 medals, 89 top 10 placings and 93 personal best times. In fact, their impact was such Carterton placed fourth out of a total of 18 participants in the team's event, seven of their swimmers qualified for New Zealand national competitions early in 2009 and six of them broke Wairarapa short course records. Among the latter were Logan Barham, who set a new time for his age group in the 200m breaststroke and Katrina Simmonds, who did likewise in the gruelling 1500m freestyle. Samuel Pepper and Joe Hammond both broke records set 11 years ago by Chris Moke, Pepper in the 50m freestyle and Hammond in the 100m backstroke.
But the oldest Wairarapa record to tumble came in the 100m freestyle when Neil van Wijk bettered a time set 19 years ago by Greg O'Connor. van Wijk also re-broke his own Wairarapa record in the 50m breaststroke.
A team of 15 Carterton swimmers took part in the Mitch Tait Memorial carnival in Masterton last weekend, an event which is a fund raiser for the Robert Algie Memorial Trust.
Here too they performed very well, taking 38 top three placings and they also felled another Wairarapa record, this time through their freestyle girls relay team of Katrina Simmonds, Hannah Hammond, Bailey Peterson and Grace Hammond. Carterton also won the boys relay with Samuel Pepper, Joe Hammond, Jock Cudmore and Carlin Peterson representing them there.
This weekend will see Carterton coach Russell Geange send three of his swimmers, Grace Hammond, Katrina Simmonds and Neil van Wijk, to Mount Maunganui to represent Wairarapa at the New Zealand national spring competition.
To contest this meet, which attracts the "cream of the crop" of the country's age group swimmers, they had to meet some very difficult qualifying times and the Carterton trio will compete in 17 events between them over four days.
Simmonds did particularly well to qualify as she is in the 15ys and under age group and most of her times were registered while she was just 12yrs of age.
As a New Zealand record-holder in breaststroke, van Wijk is ranked in first place in his speciality events while Hammond will not only be involved in freestyle events but just recently acquired a spot in the 400m individual medley as well.
Simmonds and van Wijk were both selected to attend recent training camps with the New Zealand development squad and their performances at Mount Maunganui are likely to be a deciding factor as to whether they are chosen to represent their country in Australia and Mexico next year.