Records broken, National titles won, and PBs smashed by Neo and Taka at the NZ short course swimming championships

By Annika Bokor | Posted: Monday October 6, 2025

The New Zealand Short Course Championships were held in Auckland 21 – 26th September and Otago Boys' had Neo Salomonsson and Taka Sugiyama lining up on the blocks.

They competed their individual age groups in the morning, with the top 30 heading back for the evening A, B, or C finals if they chose to take them on.

Neo Salomonsson (16) started off nervously with the 100 IM, just 0.01 outside his PB for 6th. Day 2 had two events for Neo where he first lined up for the 100 free, where he placed 6th again but lowered his own Otago record by 0.36 to 51.56. Later in the session came his favourite, the 50 fly. With a new race plan of no breaths except at the turn and maximising his underwater kicks, he blasted a 24.58 for gold and lowered his own Otago record he set in June. It’s worth noting that this time is only 0.11 seconds off the Open (19+) Otago record.

Day 3 brought the 100 fly, where he was just over his PB but still secured another gold. He qualified for finals in all events but chose to swim only the 50 and 100 fly A finals. Against much larger built swimmers, including several Aquablacks, the splash and wash made it tough to reproduce his morning form, but he remains ranked in the Open top 10.

On Day 4 came the dreaded 200 fly. Neo was third by more than a body length at the final turn, but then unleashed a blistering final 25, but left it a bit late and touched 0.02 behind the winner, good for silver. However, with a time of 2:05.22 he crushed a 24-year-old Otago record by nearly two seconds (which was held by Old Boy Andrew McMillan). On Day 5 he closed with the 200 IM, where a PB by 3.34 seconds earned him silver. There he once again showcased his closing speed, being the only swimmer under 30 seconds on the last leg.

Taka Sugiyama (18) was their club’s workhorse, entering a team-high seven events.

He kicked day 1 off with the 100 IM and 200 breast close to PBs, then swam a strong 400 IM on day 2 to place 8th and get a spot in the B final. His big breakthrough however came in the 400 free on day 3, where he produced a 4.3-second PB in the heats. This was an amazing swim and Taka’s hard work on improving his middle-distance freestyle fitness and technique certainly showed. This speedy swim got Taka into the evening C final and there he put on another outstanding swim. With the clock stopping at 4:08.63, he not only went under the 4 min 10 sec mark for the first time, but he also took off another 2.26 seconds, overall going 6.56 seconds faster than his entry time. This means he swam about 1.5 seconds faster for every 100 m!

On Day 4, he carried the momentum into the 200 free, slicing another 1.68 seconds off his entry time, where his time of 1:56.63 got him into another evening final. He rounded things out with the 100 breast on day 4, just over his PB.Unfortunately, due to very sore hip flexors (which is not surprising from all that kicking he’s done), he had to withdraw from the 200 IM on the last day.

Open males 4 x 50 medley relay. Neo and Taka also made up half of the club’s 4x50 medley open relay team. After the backstroke and breaststroke leg, Neo flew through the butterfly leg in 24.01, the 3rd-fastest split overall on that leg, and pushed their team into 1st place in their heat. Taka anchored with freestyle, facing tough opposition against freestyle sprint specialists, pulled out all the stops, including a perfectly timed and executed take-over from Neo. His 24.80 dipped under 25 seconds for the first time, which is particularly impressive given he had just swum the 200 free not long before.

Together, the boys slashed 2.71 seconds off their entry time. They were seeded 13th of 27 teams going in, and finished as the 6th fastest team in New Zealand.

Age group results summary:

Neo (16 years age group)

50 butterfly – GOLD, National Age Group title holder & Otago Age group Record

100 butterfly – GOLD, National Age Group title holder

200 butterfly – SILVER & Otago Age group Record

200 IM – SILVER

100 freestyle – 6th & Otago Age group Record

100 IM – 6th

Taka (17-18 years age group)

400 free – 6th

400 IM – 8th

200 free – 10th