Young swim sensation keeps feet on the ground

Chanel College fourth former Neil van Wijk isn't letting his remarkable success at the New Zealand age group swimming championships held in Christchurch last week go to his head.
A medal haul of three golds and one bronze stamped van Wijk as one of the individual stars of a meet which saw the best young swimmers in this country take on their counterparts from Japan, Australia and New Caldeonia.
And what's more van Wijk did not only claim first placing in the boys 14yrs 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events but he set national age group records in all of them as well - three of 10 new records to be set over the whole five-day meet.
Suggest to van Wijk though that his effort was something out of the ordinary for a swimmer who only "got serious" about the sport two years ago and rather than rave about his current form he'll tell you there is still a long way to go before he is good enough to represent his country in major events like the Olympics.
"There's a lot of work to do before I get that far. I have to keep on improving and hope I am good enough to get there," he said.
There is a refreshing honesty about van Wijk too when you ask him why he decided to specialise in breaststroke.
"I liked doing it and I found it easier than freestyle," he said
"It just seemed to suit me better than the other strokes I guess."
Not that van Wijk's success has come without hard work. A member of the Masterton Swimming Club his training regime sees him at the pool most mornings and nights except Saturdays and the 14-year-old "hates to think" how many kilometres he has covered in the process.
"It's tough getting out of bed some mornings but it's just something you've got to do," he said.
"You have to train well to race well."
van Wijk was optimistic of his chances of bettering at least a couple of New Zealand records in his breaststroke events but he admits to being surprised himself at his winning three gold medals, plus a bronze in the 200m individual medley.
"I was pretty amazed really, I knew I was doing the times to be competitive but to win three golds - no, I wasn't expecting something like that," he said.
As it happened, however, van Wijk's medal tally might have even been greater but for his efforts in the 400m individual medley, 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly being adversely affected by a whack on the arm received during one of the heats.
He was already experiencing some trouble with strained tendons in that arm and the additional knock definitely slowed him to a degree.
"It was pretty frustrating, the arm got quite sore and I knew I could be doing better," he said.