Waves coach Andy Adair is a hard taskmaster. He put extra pressure on his star pupil, Troy Balvert, at Moana Pool last night.
Balvert (19), a physical education student at the University of Otago, came through a tough ordeal to claim the Otago open men's 1500m title in 16min 31.52sec.
It was short of his personal best time but this was expected from Balvert, who has had a tough open-water racing season.
"We tried a new racing plan and it worked OK to 500m," Balvert said. "But I then dropped off the pace."
Balvert passed through 100m in 59sec, and was timed 2min 04sec at 200m and 4min 15sec at 400m.
It then got tough and the pace slowed slightly.
But Balvert was out in front, was not challenged, and coasted to the finish.
Balvert is a distance swimmer and came through his first open-water season in style by finishing runner-up in the 5km in Sydney in December and fourth in the New Zealand open-water 10km championships in Taupo two weeks ago.
His goal for the season is to qualify for the Oceania championships in Noumea.
Canterbury swimmers were out in force for the combined championships, held at Moana Pool because QE2 pool in Christchurch was wrecked by the February earthquake.
One of the best performances of the night came from Thomas Heaton (Waves), who convincingly won the boys aged 13 and under 1500m Otago title in 18min 07.63sec from Oscar Pedersen (Oamaru), who clocked 18min 59.71sec.
Heaton improved his time by a massive 1min 05sec and Pedersen by 5sec.
Heaton started strongly by swimming the first 100m in 1min 08sec and then averaged 1min 13sec until the last 100m lap, which he sprinted in 1min 10sec.
Caitlin Deans (Waves) won the girls 13 and under 800m in 10min 09.99sec from Kenzie Findlay (Wanaka), 10min 27.39sec. It was a personal best time by 19sec for Deans and 30sec for Findlay.
Lulu Schneiders (Waves) won the women's aged 14 and 15 800m title in a personal best time of 9min 35.83sec.
Sami Hotop (Queenstown) qualified for the New Zealand age-group championships when she took 10sec off her time to finish third in 9min 55.43sec.
The heavier workload paid dividends for Patrick Harris (Queenstown) when he convincingly won the boys aged 14 and 15 800m title in 9min 50.20sec, a personal-best time by 11sec. He displayed the mark of a champion when he swam the last 100m in 1min 11sec, after averaging between 1min 14sec and 1min 15sec for the previous six 100m splits.
His effort pleased his coach, Frank Wylie, whose swimmers have become fitter since the Queenstown pool has been open for 12 months of the year.
Sam Wardhaugh (Waves) improved by a massive 1min 05sec in winning the boys aged 13 and under 800m in 10min 27.06sec.
