Swimming

New Zealand Secondary Schools Swimming Championships - September 2012

Having met the required national qualifying times, a team of 8 young men (four under 15 years and four 16-18 years) represented St Paul’s Collegiate at this top New Zealand Secondary Schools event along with 440 other qualifying swimmers from 110 other secondary schools throughout the country.

The scale of the event needed to be seen to be believed and the four sessions of timed finals were spread over the three days. Nick McGuire-Holcroft read the Oath of Athletes at the opening ceremony and Connor Egan carried the Waikato banner during the parade of schools.

Many of our swimmers had spent their winter furthering their training and while most of us were still in bed on cold winter mornings or inside watching TV during cold, dark evenings, these guys were in the pool churning out the kilometres in their rigorous training programmes.

Just to be at these champs was an honour and these eight fine young men did us proud. With some of our medal-winning stars from 2011 at Tihoi, our 2012 swimmers were Connor Egan, Jimmy Christey, Tully Dickson, Rudi Grace, Mark Swarbrick, Cam Voykovich, James Atherton and Nick McGuire-Holcroft.

While this year we did not get in the medals, we did achieve ten TOP 10 finishes from finals across the age divisions, four of these in the relays. Given the size of the event and the number in our qualifying team, this was a truly great achievement.

Individual TOP 10 Honours: 
Connor Egan:  5th 14 years 200 Fly, 7th 14 years 100 Free
Jimmy Christey:  7th 13 years 50 Free, 10th 13 years 100 Free
Cam Voykovich:  6th 16-18 years 200 Fly
James Atherton 7th 16-18 years 50 Free

Relay TOP 10 Honours: Under 15 years (Connor Egan 14, Rudi Grace 14, Tully Dickson 13 and Jimmy Christie 13), 9th 200m Freestyle Relay, 10th 200m Medley Relay

Over 15 years (Cam Voykovich 16, James Atherton 16, Mark Swarbrick 16 and Nick McGuire-Holcroft 18), 9th 200m Freestyle Relay, 10th 200m Medley Relay

Well done gentlemen for your sportsmanship, the proud way that you represented your school and for the results that you achieved, not only in the finals, but also in the fact that you each scored new personal bests.