Salomonsson and Sugiyama impress at the NZ Secondary School Swimming Championships
By Annika Boker | Posted: Tuesday July 25, 2023
Swimming is a sport that requires incredible strength, technique, and endurance of athletes as they glide through the water.
From freestyle to butterfly, backstroke to breaststroke, Neo Salomonsson (Year 10) and Taka Sugiyama (Year 11) pushed their limits to achieve remarkable feats in the pool at the New Zealand Secondary School Championships held in Wellington 20-23 July.
While battling it out with 575 other swimmers, the boys entered the meet with different goals. Taka’s main aim was to obtain more NZ short course qualifying times in his non-strength events, and to improve those he already had. Neo’s focus on the other hand was to practice his strong events, and to gain more race experience.
Neo was on fire and brought home 7 medals and broke 4 Otago age group short course records. He showcased his strength stroke by scoring a butterfly hat-trick in Otago age group records. Neo not only broke his own 50m fly record he set last month, but also the 100m fly and 200m fly records set in 2014 and 2012 respectively. This was the first time Neo has broken the magical 1 minute barrier for 100 butterfly. He also broke his own 50m backstroke Otago age group and produced personal best all around.
Neo’s results:
- 200 fly – Gold, and an Otago age group record with a time of 2:14.57 (previous record 2:15.37).
- 100 fly – Silver, and an Otago age group record with a time of 59.85. (previous record 59.89)
- 50 fly – Silver, and an Otago age group record with a time of 26.69. (previous record 27.13)
- 50 back – Silver and an Otago age group record with a time of 27.60. (previous record 26.70)
- 200 back – Bronze
- 100 back –Bronze
- 100 free – Bronze
- 50 free – 4th
- 100 IM – 9th (finalist) and a personal best time
Taka has been incredibly dedicated to his training in preparation for this meet. He has worked particularly hard on his backstroke and underwater. Taka’s hard work paid off as his underwater was on par with the backstroke the 'specialists'!
Below is a summary of his swims, but the highlights would be his 100m backstroke and freestyle. Although Taka swims all four strokes very well, backstroke is his weakest. This did however not show at this meet as he lowered his own personal best time with about 3 seconds in 100m back and edged closer to the 31 second barrier in 50m back. Taka also executed his 100m freestyle in an impressive manner, lowering his personal best time with 2 seconds.
Taka’s results:
- 400 free 8th (finalist) and a personal best time
- 50 breast, 7th (finalist) and a personal best time
- 100 back, a personal best time
- 100 free, a personal best time
- 50 back, a personal best time
- 200 free, a personal best time
Taka also swam 50 fly & back and 200 IM.
On day 2, Neo and Taka teamed up in the 2 x 50 freestyle relay where they exceeded their expectations. This relay was in the ‘open’ category, and they met their ambitious goal to place in the top half. By placing 20th out of 53 teams, they outswam many teams made up of older students (and had it been an age group event they would have walked away with a bronze medal). Together they lowered their combined entry time by 0.71 seconds and most of that was the result of Taka swimming his 50 free leg much faster than he has ever done before.
The boys proudly represented Otago Boys' and left a lasting impression with their exceptional talent and determination. The next big event will be the NZ short course championships where Neo and Taka will team up yet again to represent their club (Kiwi).
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