| GREAT RESULTS AT THE HONG KONG AGE GROUP CHAMPIONSHIPS! MARCH 11-13TH WELL DONE TO ALL THE SWIMMERS! | |
| 3/22/2016 | |
 Twenty-four HWI Performance Squad swimmers and one Gold Squad swimmer participated at the national short course Age Group Championships at Shing Mun Valley Pool. Six of our athletes were rewarded with medals for their outstanding performances in individual events. Those are: Temana Short (14 yrs.) stormed to a gold medal in all four of his freestyle races. His time in the 100 m freestyle was 53.13. In the 200 m freestyle Temana shaved 6 seconds of his personal best time when touching in 1:55.78. In the 50 m freestyle he was in a league by himself in his age group taking it home in 24.48. He was also untouchable in the 400 m freestyle finishing in 4:07.89. Temana also featured in the 100 m IM placing fifth in 1:03.62. In the 50 m butterfly he made it once more into the “Top 8”of his age group in a time of 28.06 in 8th place. Nathaniel Yeoh (12 yrs.) stepped on the block five times over the weekend. He won a medal in every event that he was racing in except the 100 m IM were he suffered a very controversial disqualification on the backstroke to breaststroke turn. Nathaniel was well ahead of the field in this event. Three of the medals that he won were gold medals. Those are the 200 m Freestyle in 2:06.42 which was a 7 second improvement as well as the 50 m freestyle in 26.51. In the 200 m IM he turned heads once more by storming to a 12 second p.b. finishing 2.5 seconds ahead of the next placed swimmer in first place with a time of 2:20.52. Only in the 100 m Freestyle one of his competitors out-touched Nathaniel by six hundreds of a second. He took silver in 57.25. Miles Williams (18 yrs.) in one of his last local competitions before heading off to the famous Duke University, managed to win two gold medals in the 400 m IM in a time of 4:28.12 and the 400 m Freestyle in 3:53.49. In the 100 m and 200 m freestyle he had to give in to 23 year old Asian Games Bronze medallist Cheung Kin Tat. Miles took silver in personal best times of 50.55 and 1:51.26 respectively. He ranked fourth in the 50 m freestyle in 23.51. Malin Leven (12 yrs.) stormed to a gold medal in the 100 m backstroke in 1:09.84. Further she was rewarded with a silver medal in the 200 m backstroke in 2:26.65. Her 50 m backstroke in 33.56 ranked 4th. In the 200 m freestyle Malin made it into the points with an eighth place finish in 2:20.63. This was the most improved performance (-13 sec.) of all HWI swimmers on that weekend! Malin also raced the 200 m IM – once more achieving a big personal best time in 2:38.83. Adam Graham (10 yrs.) took home two bronze medals. First in the 100 m freestyle in 1:08.38 which was an enormous personal best time by 6 seconds. He followed up with a 2:26. 79 in the 200 m freestyle. Both Adam’s 100 m and 50 m backstroke ranked 4th in times of 1:17.87 and 35.55. Like Nathaniel, Adam was penalized with a rather dubious disqualification in the 50 m freestyle which cost him another medal. Zai Xiang Ma (17 yrs.) stormed to a bronze and personal best in the 200 m freestyle in 1:56.02. He had a strong 200 m IM in 2:11.14 which ranked 4th. In the 100 m freestyle he was slightly off his personal best time touching in 53.82 ranking 8th. He also competed in the 50 m freestyle in 25.25 touching in 15th place. In addition to swimmers winning medals in individual events four of our boys swam on SCAA relays and contributing to valuable relay double points. Those boys are: Nathaniel Yeoh with the 12 years and younger 4 x 50 m freestyle relay in a 26.37 split, winning bronze as well as the 12 yrs. and younger 4 x 50 m IM relay taking silver and racing the butterfly leg in 29.50. Nathaniel also swam the 12 year old boys leg on the 4 x 50 m IM stair step relay. His time was 26.57 for the freestyle and earned him another bronze medal. Nick de Chazal (12 yrs.) featuring on the 4 x 50 m freestyle 12 and under relay with a split of 29.15 earning a bronze medal. Miles Williams on the 4 x 50 m freestyle 13 yrs. and older relay in a split of 22.83 winning silver and the 4 x 50 m IM stair step relay swimming the butterfly leg in 25.18 taking bronze. Stefan Hess (18 yrs.) winning a silver medal on the 4 x 50 m freestyle relay for 13 yrs. and older boys as start swimmer in 24.21. Five of our 15 years old girls placed at least once in the "Top 8" of their age group. Those girls are Nicole Evans in the 400 m freestyle touching in 6th place in 4:37.56. Jemima Ridley placing 5. in the 800 m freestyle in a personal best time of 9:15.74 as well as 5th in the 200 m IM and 100 m butterfly and 8th in 100 m freestyle and 200 m butterfly. Aneekah Styles touching in 8. place in the 50 m backstroke in 32.29; Kylie Woo ranking 4th in the 100 m backstroke in 1:06.75 and sixth in both the 50 m and 200 m backstroke; Samantha Gove finishing in 5. place in the 200 m freestyle in 2:11.57. We also had a number of girls contributing to points by racing on a SCA relay that made it into the fastest 8 club teams on an SCA relay. Those girls are Malin Leven, Jemima Ridley, Samantha Gove, Erin Deayton (12 yrs.), Kylie Woo, Kiana Teh (14 yrs.) and Yunah Frank (14 yrs.) In addition to all those swimmers that contributed through their performances to the South China Athletic Associations club score we had nine swimmers racing at a very high level all making the stringent qualifying times set out by the Hong Kong Amateur Swimming Association. Those swimmers are: Julian Chow (13 yrs.), Olivia Du (11 yrs.), Ella Fraser (13 yrs.), Owen Henderson (15 yrs.), Ariella Levy (16 yrs.), Alison Macalpin (13 yrs.), Mia Roets (13 yrs.), Isabel Stowe (14 yrs.) and Ernest Wong (14 yrs.). All in all our team has done a great job with a number of swimmers making big strides forward despite a large number of athletes suffering interruptions to their regular training routine due to sickness and injuries in the run up to the meet. We are looking forward to the start of the long course season with the Festival of Sport at the Hong Kong Sports Institute, Division 2 at Kwun Tong Swimming Pool and the International Mantas Invitational at Tung Chung Pool all on the calendar for April. | |
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