Trio off to national champs
Three South Canterbury swimmers have qualified for the national open championships at the end of March.
Swim Timaru club members Riley Taylor, 19, Matthew Moore, 17, and Luka Foy, 17, from Temuka Swimming Club, have all qualified for the event in Auckland. However, Foy, a Roncalli College student, has chosen not to attend, instead focusing on next month’s national age group championships.
The swimmers spend about 20 hours a week training at CBay and are all coached by CBay head coach Oscar van Stekelenborg.
‘‘It’s very time-consuming for the level they are at,’’ he said.
The hardest part for them was juggling life, school and swimming. ‘‘As a coach I try to teach them balance, which they have achieved.’’
There will also be Olympic trials at the upcoming event but the two swimmers are not at that stage, van Stekelenborg said.
Olympic hopefuls will be competing against international times, not placings. The standard of entries would be high and van Stekelenborg anticipates Taylor will be in the top 10 at the national open competition.
If he swims well he could also make the Oceania Swimming
Championships, where swimmers from Australia, Fiji, Samoa and Hawaii compete, he said.
Watching his students improve and reach their full potential, no matter what level they were at, drove van Stekelenborg to coach. In his day, as national age group champion 35 years ago, he was coached by the late Duncan Laing who famously coached Olympic champion Danyon Loader.
After nine years of swimming Moore, in his final year at Timaru Boys’ High School, is ‘‘retiring’’ from the sport after the national age groups championships.
He has not discounted returning to the sport in the future, he’ll just wait and see if he misses it.