Six golds for Gabrielle Fa’amausili at NZ Age Group Swimming Champs

Above: World Junior champion Gabrielle Fa’amausili celebrates winning one of her six golds. Photo credit: BW Media

This past week, New New   New New NewZealand’s leading young swimmers have been competing in the New Zealand Age Group Swimming Championships in Wellington.

Many swimmers this week have been competing to qualify for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii in August, featuring the best swimmers from Australia, USA, Japan and the rest of the Pacific region.

The swimmers have been representing their clubs. The NZSS Swimming Championships are in September.

One of the stars of the meet was Year 12 Avondale College and United club swimmer Gabrielle Fa’amausili, who led the way with six golds from six swims, ahead of the five golds earned by Gina McCarthy (Hillcrest club), Yeonsu Lee (North Shore) and Chelsey Edwards (SwimZone).

On Friday night, Fa’amausili - who is the junior world 50m backstroke champion - finished as she began at the start of the week, clinching two wins.

Fa’amausili clocked 57.05s to win her final in the 100m freestyle for 16 years age group, to go under the qualifying standard for the Pan Pac Champs by 25/100ths of a second. She followed this with a win in the 50m backstroke in 28.95s to bring her tally to six wins from six finals.

“I’m really happy with how the week went and I’m just happy with my training and everything with my new club,” Fa’amausili told Swimming New Zealand. She moved to the United club [Auckland] last year under head coach Igor Polianski, the former Olympic backstroke gold medallist.

“I’m just looking forward to achieving bigger and better things throughout the year and I’m doing it with such an amazing team as a bonus as well so yeah I’m just real happy with how the week went.

“I’m definitely going to take some time off now and just rest and re-evaluate everything for the new season and concentrate on Oceania’s which is the next big thing and then work towards Junior Pan Pacs.”
Top of the pops in the male competition was North Shore’s Wilrich Coetzee (formerly Orewa College) with victories in the 200m butterfly and 50m backstroke and second in the 100m freestyle for 17-18 years. It brought his tally to seven gold medals and 11 medals in all to top the medal count.

Behind him was Tryon Henry, 14 years, from Howick Pakuranga with six golds, including a win in the 100m freestyle on Friday night, from the five wins to Josh Gilbert (Stratford), 14 years, and Lewis Clareburt (Capital) 16 years.

At the start of the meet on Monday, two swimmers – Mya Rasmussen and Yeonsu Lee - bettered the qualifying standard for selection to the Junior Pan Pac Champs while Josh Gilbert and Mario Koenigspeger set national age records.

Lee (North Shore), who competed in the world junior championships last year, was the first to reach the Junior Pan Pacific qualifying standard when she snuck under the qualifying time in the morning heats of the 200m freestyle, with a time of 2:04.26.

The 17 year old shaved off another 3/100ths of a second in the finals to win the national title for her age group and provide a confidence boost for the week ahead.

Rising 15 year old star Rasmussen (Kiwi West Aquatics) joined Lee in qualifying in the heats reaching the 400m individual medley standard with a time of 4:50.42. She took out the national age group title in the evening to be just 0.1s slower than the heat.

Gilbert, 14, continued on his record-setting way in winning his age group in the 100m breaststroke. Gilbert broke his own national mark in the 14 years 100m breaststroke in finishing second at the recent Australian age championships in 1:06.26. He nipped under that time by 0.1s to add to his record run.

Koenigspeger (Howick Pakuranga) won the 17-18 years final of the same event in 1:01.80 to take more than half a second off his own national mark. The 18-year-old, too old to qualify for the Junior Pan Pacs despite bettering the time, also won his age title in the 50m butterfly in 25.16s.

Parnell’s Mille MacDonald, 18, was the class of the women’s 100m breaststroke in 1:12 while Fa’amausili was fastest of all in the 50m butterfly in 27.93.
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Two qualifying swims and two national age group records highlighted the second day on Tuesday.
Gabrielle Fa’amausili and Hayley McIntosh (Northwave, Whangarei) reached the qualifying standards for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships. Fa’amausili’s time of 1:00.76 in tonight’s finals of the 100m backstroke also set a New Zealand 16 years age group record.

Josh Gilbert set his second national record of the meet, claiming the 14 years 50m breaststroke title with a time of 30.45.

Fa’amausili was more than three seconds inside the qualifying mark for Hawaii, but just 6/100ths of a second inside the national record held by fellow teenage rival Bobbi Gichard.

McIntosh made the grade in the 400m freestyle in the morning heats with a time of 4:20.40. She took out the national age group title in the evening with a time of 4:21.22.

Her clubmate, 15 year old Ciara Smith took out her age group in the 50m breaststroke with her time of 33.21 just 7/100ths of a second outside Annabelle Carey’s national age record, and was the fastest of all age groups.

Gilbert followed up his win in the 50m breaststroke with victory in the 200m individual medley. He clocked 2:10.97 in the medley to be only 0.4s off the national record and was the fourth fastest overall.

His 30.45s effort in the 50m breaststroke final went under the previous national age record of Bradley Arona Waqanivavala of 30.62 set five years ago.

Meanwhile Coetzee, won the 200m individual medley in 2:04.43, under the standard for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships, but the teenager is outside the age limit.

He backed up with a strong effort, clocking 56.88s to be fastest in the 100m backstroke.
Three Taranaki teenagers along with Fa’amausili produced the standout performances on day three.
Eliot Lundon-Moore and Zac Reid (both Aquabladz, New Plymouth) reached the qualifying standard for the Junior Pan Pac Champs while Fa’amausili achieved her second qualifying swim of the week.

Fa’amausili was only 3/100ths of a second off her New Zealand 16 years age group record in the 50m freestyle, winning in 25.65s which was also under the Junior Pan Pac qualifying time of 26.11.

Breaststroker Josh Gilbert broke his third New Zealand age group record of the meet, this time winning the 14 years 200m breaststroke which was his fourth national age group title. Gilbert went 2:23.64 to break his own record by more than a second to be well clear of the field.

Commonwealth Youth Games swimmer Lundon-Moore edged his way under the 200m breaststroke time in the heats with a time of 2:19.60 but was unable to claim the national title which went to Howick Pakuranga’s Mario Koenigsperger (2:16.37), who is too old to be eligible for the Junior Pan Pacs.

Reid also reached the qualifying standard in the morning in the 400m freestyle clocking 4:01.58, but was just edged out in the final by Capital’s Lewis Clareburt who took honours in 4:01.89.

Fa’amausili and her United clubmate Annabelle Paterson both bettered the Junior Pan Pac qualifying standard in the 200m backstroke while Northland’s McIntosh scored a second qualifying swim.

Fa’amausili swam 2:15.56 in the final to go under the Junior Pan Pac qualifying time and take just over three seconds off her previous personal best.

Paterson, 17, bettered the qualifying standard in the 200m backstroke event twice today after going 2:15.93 in the heats and then touching in 2:14.30 in tonight’s finals to also take out the age group national title.
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McIntosh picked up her second qualifying swim of the meet in the 800m freestyle going 8:56.72.

McIntosh won silver in the 800m freestyle at the recent Australian Age Group Championships and claimed the national age group title tonight.
Caitlin Deans (Neptune) also came devastatingly close to also going under the qualifying time touching in 9:00.48. The qualifying time was 9:00.41.

In other swims Coetzee continued his winning ways, picking up titles in the 17-18 years over the 200m individual medley and 100m butterfly.

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