Young swimmers on fire at champs

Five medals, 15 more top 10 placings and 35 personal best times & the small Wairarapa squad was on fire at the New Zealand junior swimming championships held simultaneously in Wellington, Hamilton and Dunedin last weekend.
A total of 11 Wairarapa swimmers from the Masterton and Carterton clubs qualified to compete alongside 591 of the counterparts aged between 9 and 12 years and they did coaches Russell Geange from Carterton and Anna Kitching and Julie Hamilton from Masterton and their province proud.
Wairarapa made a stunning start to the Wellington meet, taking silver and bronze medals in the first two races, the 12yrs and under 400m individual medleys. Katrina Simmonds, 12, powered her way to second placing in the girl's event while Ben Ruback, 12, was third in the boy's section..
Simmonds, from Carterton, had an outstanding weekend, collecting four national medals and three more top 10 national placings, a performance covering seven of her eight events.
Her 400 individual medley second saw her better her personal best time by 10secs and she also recorded pb's when third in the 200m freestyle and third in both the 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly.
Ruback, from Masterton, also registered a personal best time by 10secs in his 400m individual medley effort, finishing off the race strongly.
He also proved his versatility with a fifth national placing in the 200m backstroke, sixth in the 200m butterfly and tenth in the 400m freestyle.
Charlotte Pope, 12, of Masterton finished fourth in the 200m freestyle in a time which was a pb by 2secs, one of three pbs she set during the meet. She was tenth in the 200m individual medley and improved her ranking in the 50m breaststroke by 13 places.
Carterton's Joe Hammond, 12, swam an impressive seven pbs in his eight races, achieving a ninth national placing in the 400m individual medley.
He was also placed eleventh in both the 200m backstroke and the 200m butterfly.
Contesting his first national competition George Sims, 12, of Masterton smashed his 100m butterfly best time by 6secs, finishing strongly in an outside lane to pick up tenth placing nationally.
Also competing at a nationals for the first time was William Hamilton, 12, of Masterton, who swam four personal best times, moving well up the rankings in several middle distance events as well as the 100m backstroke.
Katherine Williams, 11, of Masterton was making her debut at nationals too and she recorded four pbs in her eight events, improving her national rankings in the 200m backstroke and the 200m individual medley. She also competed well in the 12yrs and under 200m butterfly and 400m freestyle.
Yet another attending junior nationals for the first time was Jock Cudmore, 10, of Carterton who swam pbs in three of his four events. He took 3secs off his 100m freestyle time and improved his national ranking in three freestyle events.
The youngest member of the Wairarapa squad, Kendall Peterson, from Carterton, broke his own Wairarapa record for boys aged 10yrs and under when he set a pb by 2secs in the 200m backstroke. He improved his national ranking in that event as well as in the 100m backstroke.
Sophie Foote, 11, of Masterton made her first nationals memorable by improving her national ranking in the 200m breaststroke and recording a pb in the process while Logan Barham, 11, of Carterton swam well to improve his national ranking in the 50m breaststroke and hold his 200m breaststroke ranking.
Another highlight for Wairarapa was the performance of Joe Hammond, Ben Ruback, George Sims and William Hamilton in the boys 12yrs and under 200m freestyle relay where they broke the Wairarapa record by 3secs and beat home a strong team from the Manawatu. While they are amongst the smallest clubs in the country both Carterton and Masterton finished in the top 50 per cent nationally with Carterton placing 25th out of a total of 71 clubs and Masterton 35th.