News

Coach rapt with junior swimmers
Wed, Jan 21st, 2009

By John Hill

THIRD place overall at the Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay Summer Championships is a result that has Enterprise Swim Team head coach Gary Martin rapt with his squad's performance.

"We're in a rebuilding stage, with numbers particularly high in the junior age-groups - to get third was an exceptional effort," said Martin, whose club were No 1 for 17 successive years in a run that stretched back to the 1980s.

"For us the highlights were the performances of the young swimmers.

"Probably the two standouts in that category were Tayla Lum and Jack Virtue.

"Tayla won the 50m freestyle for 11-year-olds and qualified for the junior nationals.

"Jack (11) won his last event of the meet, the 100m butterfly, with an unbelievable finish.

"At the turn he was gone for all money.

"He was behind by about three body lengths but he kept his cool, dug deep and won by a body-length.

"He showed awesome courage and character. He also qualified for the junior nationals.

"There were others . . . some of these little guys had never competed at championships before but performed superbly.

"It might take a while to regain top spot but we'll keep chipping away. To come third with only 50 kids says a lot for the courage and quality of the swimmers."

Enterprise's third place overall came courtesy of their taking third in the 14-years-and-over division and fourth in the 13yrs-and-under. They also finished fourth on the gold medal table, with 43.

And in Chris Dawson, Enterprise had the Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay junior swimmer of the year.

Dawson, who topped the FINA points tally for the HB-PB summer champs with 656 points, had an outstanding year.

Selected for the national team for the Pacific School Games in Canberra, the 15-year-old set a HB-PB 800m freestyle record with a FINA points score of 651.

A member of the NZ age-group training squad, Dawson won a gold medal at the national age-group champs in the 100m butterfly, and silver medals in the 50m and 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley.

At the spring champs, he was third in the 200m butterfly.

Matt Scott won the 11yr boys' age-group at the HB-PB summer champs with a FINA score of 348 points, while Chris Kerr took the honours in the Brendon Long Memorial race for the seven fastest 50m sprint racers.

Story by The Gisborne Herald

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