The future of competitive swimming in Marlborough is in good hands if the efforts of the younger brigade are anything to go by.
Recently a team of nine Blenheim Swimming Club members – five boys and four girls aged 12 and under – travelled to Dunedin to compete in the annual junior Makos swimming festival.
The three-day competition hosted around 250 swimmers from 32 different clubs across the South Island, racing over distances from 50 to 200 metres across all four strokes.
The Blenheim contingent have been putting in the hard yards over the last couple of months with coach Shane Skehan and it certainly paid off with a remarkable number of personal best times and a record number of podiums.
Ten-year-old Riley Guildford led the way, achieving a record number of podium finishes for a Blenheim SC member at this meet.
Riley came first in seven of his nine entered events and very close seconds in the other two. A highlight came in the 100m fly, where he broke his own Nelson Marlborough record set a month earlier.
Ethan Spencer, 12, placed in the top 10 swimmers in his age group for three out of his nine individual events, reaching PBs in all his events, while cutting more than nine seconds off his 200 IM best.
Charlotte d’Auvergne, 11, recorded a full sheet of PBs in the eight personal events she swum, knocking more than 12 seconds off her best 200m freestyle time and showing her versatility by eclipsing her PB by nearly four seconds in the gruelling 200m IM.
Annabel Rose, 12, achieved personal best times in all of the eight events swum, her highlight a massive 12.7 seconds off her 100m backstroke time.
Adam Brain, 11, set PBs in all seven of his chosen events, highlighted by an improvement of over 12 seconds in the 200m free.
Herbie Hodson, 12, managed an 18-second PB in the 200 IM, Tia Hickman, 12, knocked over 10 seconds off her 100m backstroke PB and over nine seconds from her 100m breaststroke time.
Eight-year-old Freddy Guildford, the youngest of the team, in his first representative swimming meet, set PBs in the 50m backstroke and 50m breaststroke while Harriet d’Auvergne, 10, competed in eight events and set a big PB in the 50m free.
