The 2017 New Zealand Zonal Championships took place in Auckland yesterday, with Oceanic talent taking to the Sir Owen G. Glenn National Aquatic Centre for timed finals. NZ team Harlequins took the team title, racking up a monster 1080 points to sit comfortably ahead of 2nd place Makos team who accumulated 736.
Top 4 team totals are below:
Harlequins – 1080 pts
Makos – 736 pts
AquaKnights – 709 pts
All Stars – 587 pts
Meet Results – Meet Mobile: 2017 Zonal Championships
Along with local stars Bradlee Ashby and Helena Gasson, Australian Olympian Emily Seebohm made two racing appearances over the course of the competition. Coming off of two surgeries, one in December to address endometriosis and another more recently to remove wisdom teeth, the 24-year-old World Champion took double gold in Auckland.
Competing for the AquaKnights, Seebohm snared wins in the women’s 200m IM and 100m backstroke in times of 2:13.90 and 1:00.38, respectively. Though pedestrian by her standards, the swimmer explains that she is under a heavy workload after having returned to the pool. Heading into Auckland, Seebohm said, “I wanted to get my health sorted which I had no time to do in a big year with Rio. I had my wisdom teeth out three weeks ago. That was super fun. I highly recommend it,” she said teasingly. “If you definitely want to lose some weight, then go through getting your wisdom teeth out.
“I’m just getting back into swimming. I am not expecting great things this weekend but it will be nice to race again.”
For his part, Ashby took titles in the 200m freestyle (1:54.02) and 200m IM (2:03.73), while Gasson nabbed victories across the women’s 400m IM (4:50.62), 200m butterfly (2:12.98) and 100m butterfly (1:00.17) races.
Was this long course? Those times are not bad at all if so.
Yes it was long course
Long course and the meet was all run in just an evening. I was impressed by some of the swims in heavy training.
https://swimming.org.nz/article.php?group_id=26184