On the fifth and final day of the State New Zealand Short Course Championships 24 year old Lauren Boyle and 29 year old Kurt Crosland finished the competition strong by taking one more title each.
Boyle won the 200 freestyle in a time of 1:56.17, which gives her wins in the 200, 400 and 800 freestyle. After coming off of a break away from the water her stamina was challenged as Samantha Lee lead the 200 at the half way point, but Boyle overcame the deficit finishing just over a second off her own national record of 1:54.97.
“I’m pretty happy with how I’ve done but it is a mental challenge to get back into the competitive mindset after a break,” said Boyle.
“I’m pretty tired on the last day of the competition so I had no idea how it would go. I just wanted to feel comfortable in the back end and come home strong and I think I did that quite well.”
Crosland continued to add to his amazing comeback story by winning the men’s 200 backstroke making it five titles for the competition, winning the 50, 100 and 200 backstroke as well as the 100 and 200 IM.
Crosland had his sites set on Cameron Stanley‘s national record of 1:53.59, but fell short winning the 200 back stroke in a time of 1:54.02.
“My plan was to smash the third 50m and see what I had left in the tank, but unfortunately I just missed that record so next time I’m going to have a crack at it,” said Crosland.
Even though the spotlight shone on the veterans on the final night of the competition the youngsters still made an impact. With Natasha Lloyd, the winner of the 50 and 200 breaststroke, out due to illness 17 year old Jane Ip took the women’s 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:09.79.
Although Isaac Foote won the men’s 200 butterfly in a time of 1:58.56, the second place finisher Wilrich Coetzee was really the story of the race. The 16 year old Coetzee posted a time of 1:59.19 breaking Danyon Loader‘s 1991 record of 2:00.88.
National Training Centre athlete Nathan Capp dominated the men’s 1500 freestyle winning in a time of 15:07.18 22 seconds ahead of Dylan Dunlop-Barrett who recorded a time of 15:29.20.
In the para competition world champion Mary Fisher won the 100 breaststroke while Sarah Fuhrer grabbed the 200 freestyle title.
Although the final point scores have not been posted it is safe to say that North Shore Swimming has won the meet. After the fourth day of competition the team had a point total of 3154 compared to the second place United Swimming Club that had collected 1662.
