Swimmers and staff at the St Peter’s Swim Club show off their trophy-haul from the 2018 Swimming Waikato Awards.
The St Peter’s Swimming Club has plenty of reasons to celebrate after dominating the 2018 Swimming Waikato Awards. The club itself, as well as several of its members, took out 24 titles and awards at the event late last month, including swim coach Carl Gordon being named the Coach of the Year and the club being named Top Performance Club of the Year.
“It’s great, it’s a tribute to all the hard work the kids put in, all the hard work the committee and the coaches put in,” Carl said, adding that it was “really nice to be recognised” as coach of the year, also crediting his fellow coaches Aly Fitch and Helen Barr with the club’s success.
The club won the Top Big Club Award for their massive success at the Waikato Relay Championships, taking out the Jacobs Cup for 4x50m freestyle (juniors), the Noumean Trophy for 4x100m freestyle, the Adam and Eve trophy for 2x50m freestyle (seniors) and the Little Adam and Evette trophy for 2x50m freestyle (juniors).
On top of that the club won the Kenning Memorial Shield for the best overall performance at the Waikato Age Group Champs, was named Top Club at the Waikato Junior Champs and the Waikato Senior Champs and was awarded the overall Performance Swimming Club of the Year.
“It was good to see the progress we’ve made has finally paid off,” said Daniel Caldwell. He and Paige Flynn each won the male and female Glenvale Wines Cups for winning the senior men’s and women’s 100m freestyle finals at the Waikato Champs. The pair also won the Patricia O’Fee Cup and the Taumaranui Cup for winning the female and male open 50m freestyle finals respectively.
The swimmers train regularly at the Brock Pool and Perry Pool (pictured) at St Peter’s School.
Paige also won the Stanley trophy for the most FINA points in the 100m backstroke and won the Outstanding Performance Award for the most points in the 100m freestyle. “
St Peter’s swimmer Savanna Bourke won both the Glenvale Points Cup – for the highest number of points achieved by a female at the Waikato Junior Champs (12 years and under) – and the Alison McMillan Trophy, for fastest female in the 100m freestyle at the Waikato Junior Champs (12 years and under).
Vanessa Ouwehand won the FINA trophy for her top performance in the butterfly, collecting the most FINA points (for females) across Olympic events at the Waikato Champs, and Luke Mitchell won a Fina trophy for collecting the most points in the Freestyle (for males).
Hannah Blackwood won the Open Water Achievement Award, and Thomas Raymond won the Pullon Trophy for the fastest 10km open water swim at the National Championships. And finally, Maxwell Stubbs won the Aqua Shop Trophy for the fastest male in the 100m backstroke (out of all ages) at the Waikato Champs.
One of the club’s staunch supporters, Rachael Thomas, was also given the Merit Award for outstanding service to the club.
