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18 November 2008

Open Water Series Flyer and Entry form added – Meets page

17 November 2008

Results and Qualifiers – Meets page

Minutes added – Admin page

Records updated – Swimmers page

10 November 2008

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28 October 2008

Orca Labour Weekend Results added – Meets page

20 October 2008

Central Southland Age Group meet added – Meets page

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Mining for gold at NAGs 08 : Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Just back from NZ Age Group Swimming Championships. A very successful week in a very busy environment. Over 650 competitors from NZ. New Caladonia, Aussie and Japan made for very exciting racing.

Three Spirit of Southland athletes were successful in winning medals.

Adam McDonald (15) won the 50m Butterfly in a new NZ Age Group record, a new Southland age group and open record time of 25.96 seconds. This time beat the existing time held by William Benson of Auckland since 2003 of 26.00 seconds.

The next day Adam finished second in the 100m freestyle final in a time of 54.54 seconds, This broke one of the longest standing male Southland Age Group records belonging to Richard Tapper set on the 1/7/84 (54.84).

Adam topped of a great week on the final night of competition by finishing 3rd in the 50m Freestyle (he had set a Sth Age Group record in the heats of 25.42 seconds) then followed up with a comprehensive win in the 100m butterfly in a time of 57.69 ( a new Southland Age group and Open record)

Rebecca Smith (15) had an extremely busy week making 4 finals with her best results coming in the 200m breastsroke (3rd) and the 800m Freestyle (4th). Rebecca's time in the 800m freestyle (9.20.52) was a new Southland Age Group record passing Joyce Wiegersmas time set on the 20/1/08 by 6.81 seconds.

Penny Hayes (16) also shone through in the very competitive female 16 year age group. She made 7 finals and won three medals including gold in the 200m Individual medley on the final night of competition. This was an extremely close and exciting race with Hayes coming from behind at the 100m mark to make up ground on the breaststroke leg and then pull away to win on the final freestyle length.

Penny also achieved bronze medals in the 400m Individual medley and the 100m freestyle where she almost went under the elusive 60 second barrier recording a time

David Prattley

Penny, Adam and Rebecca

More Photos

Hot January : Monday, 28 January 2008

Splash Palace was bustling with activity over the weekend with the running of the 2008 Southland Swimming Championships. There were also many from Otago clubs creating quality opposition for Southland swimmers.

The event for the first time in many years saw domination in many of the individual results by country swimmers from Gore, Tuatapere, Te Anau and Riverton.

The overall club points trophy was taken out by the Hokonui Aquatics club from Gore (1129 points) by a massive 445 points over the two Invercargill clubs Orca (684 points) and Murihiku (678 points).

Individual age group championships were up for grabs and the following swimmers took out their respective titles:

9 & under Female Winner – Ellice Soper – Collegiate 84 points : Runner up – Anna MacDonald – Fiordland 60 points

9 & under Male Winner – Kevin Cha – Orca 88 points : Runner up – Caleb Stevenson - Hokonui Aquatics & William Wallace – Riverton 28 points

10/11 yr Female Winner – Marrissa Johnson – Waiau 85 points : Runner up – Hannah Morgan – Murihiku 60 points

10/11 yr Male Winner – Cameron Andrews – Waverley 78 points : Runner up – Joshua Hamilton– Murihiku 75 points

12/13 yr Female Winner – Kate Morris – Hokonui Aquatics 106 points : Runner up – Emma Prattley – Hokonui Aquatics 86 points

12/13 yr Male Winner – Andrew Bester – Orca 94 points : Runner Up – Aila Tuhua – Riverton 70 points

14/15 yr Female Winner – Lucy Barron – Hokonui Aquatics 102 points : Runner up – Lisa Catto – Hokonui Aquatics 88 points

14/15 yr Male Winner – Lochie Morrison – Hokonui Aquatics 93 points : Runner up – Thomas Howie – Murihiku 70 points

Open Women Winner – Penny Hayes – Waverley 110 points : Runner up – Penny Kean – Murihiku 92 points

Open Men Winner – Anthony Rose – Orca 84 points : Runner Up – Ben Richardson Orca 66 points

Full results are available on the Swimming Southland website www.swimsouthland.org.nz

The event also saw many swimmers achieve qualification status for National and South Island Events coming up in the calendar over the next two months.

The NZ Junior Swimming Championships in Dunedin is to be held on the 16th and 17th of February. Southland will be represented by 12 swimmers aged 10 – 12;

Krystee Barclay (10) Hokonui Aquatics

Kate Crawford (11) Hokonui Aquatics

Amy Dickey (12) Murihiku

Clementine Flatley (12) Orca

Hannah Morgan (10) Murihiku

Molly Tomlins (12) Murihiku

Cameron Andrews (11) Waverley

Josh Hamilton (10) Murihiku

Taylor Holden (10) Murihiku

Robert McDonald (12) Collegiate

Gavin Stark (12) Hokonui Aquatics

Aila Tuhua (12) Riverton

Keep your head in the lane : Monday, 3 September 2007

Mental Focus at Meets

This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from Dr. Alan Goldberg, a sports psychology consultant who has worked extensively with swimmers. Dr. Goldberg offers some advice on focusing mentally at meets.

Goldberg's Tip:

There are a lot of reasons why swimmers regularly freeze up at meets. Probably the main reason for swimming slow under pressure is having the wrong focus of concentration both before and during your races. If you go into your meets and races with an “outcome focus,” that is, you’re worried about breaking a certain time or beating a particular opponent, then chances are very good that you’ll freeze up and swim way below your potential.

There are two reasons for this: First, focusing on your time or an opponent before a race will get you too nervous and too tight physically to swim fast.

One of the keys to swimming fast when it counts the most is staying loose and relaxed pre-race. Second, focusing on your time or where an opponent is during your races will not only make you more nervous, but it will distract you from concentrating on what’s important: your stroke and what you are doing in your lane. Remember, to swim fast at meets, you have to leave your time and place goals at home and focus on what you are doing in the water.

Born (to swim) in the USA : Monday, 2 July 2007

Two southland swimmers Natalie and Joyce Wiegersma along with coach Jeremy Duncan and team manager Esther Price traveled to the USA for a tour of West Coast swimming meets in June. They were part of a New Zealand team headed by Swimming New Zealand Youth Programs Manager, Clive Power who has used such trips to build up top age group swimmers for World Champ and Olympic trials in the past.

The team will be training alongside and competing against some of the top US age group and youth swimmers over the 4 week tour departing on 9th of June.

Mission, Meet of Champions.

Mission head coach Bill Rose has been a long time supporter of Swimming NZ and came out to NZ to our distance camp last October.

Irvine, Nova Age Group Championships

One of the top age group meets, will give good hard racing and good lead into the meet the next weekend.

Santa Clara, Santa Clara International

One of the top meets in the world, one that a number of world records have been set, traditionally it attracts good international competition.

The two Southlanders competed first at the Mission Viejo Nadadores Club, Meet of Champions in Mission Viejo, California between the 14th to 18th of June.

This large USA Open National meet is supported by up to 600 of the top swimmers from the USA.

Joyce

800 Free 9.07 23rd

400 Free 4.26 19th

200 Free 2.06 16th

100 Free 59 56th

1500 Free 17.34 8th

All faster than her New Zealand Opens times and on track with her goals for this period in the season.

Natalie

800 Free 8.59 6th Southland Record

400 Free 4.25 14th

200 Free 2.08 30th

200 Fly 2.18 14th

100 Fly 1.03 7th

200IM 2.17.71 First

New Zealand 17yrs Age Group record previously held by Helen Norfolk 2.18.06 from 1999 also Southland Open Record and two seconds short of Helen Norfolk's New Zealand Open record.

The highlight from the meet was watching American Swimmer Kate Zeigler break a world record in the 1500m freestyle by 10 seconds. Joyce Wiegersma was swimming in the same race and came 12th overall in the final.

Jeremy Duncan noted that the California Summer is very hot especially coming directly out of a Southland Winter and these meets are in outdoor pools which presents a new challenge for the team.

Joyce and Natalie Weigersma had an impressive finish to their USA tour culminating at the Santa Clara Invitational meet. The Grand Prix event is regarded as one of the highlights of the USA swimming calendar attracting all the top ranked and USA world record holders.

The small New Zealand youth team coached by Clive Power and assisted by Southland coach Jeremy Duncan, was joined by the senior New Zealand Squad as they embark on their own tour.

Results for the two Southland sisters from the previous two meets were impressive however they showed they were saving the best for last.

Joyce broke her Southland Records in the 1500M and 200M freestyle by 15 and 2 seconds respectively. Recording these personal best times at this point in the season is a great achievement.

Younger sister Natalie continued to show her versatility and dominance in the Individual Medley and Butterfly.

She qualified in first position in the 200M individual medley winning out over a strong field including Helen Norfolk and Australian breast-stroker Liesel Jones. Natalie went on to swim fourth place in the final in a New Zealand Open Record time of 2:15.10 eclipsing Helen Norfolk's mark set in March 2005 by half a second.

Natalie also broke Helen Norfolk's New Zealand 17 year age group 400M individual medley record swimming 4:45.19. She finished 4th overall and lowered the time set in 1999 by nearly 2 seconds.

Prior to this she had set a New Zealand 17 year age group record of 1:02.02 in the 100M butterfly finishing 14th overall swimming in the B final. This race was won by 100m backstroke world record holder Natalie Coughlin.

With the 800M freestyle result still to come the two sisters have broken sixteen Southland and three New Zealand records in their three week tour (Joyce 4, Natalie 12).

Natalie ready to go in the 400IM final at Santa Clara