A heavier workload paid dividends for Patrick Harris (Queenstown) when he convincingly won the boys aged 13 and under 800m Otago title at Moana Pool last night.
Harris (13) reduced his time by 57sec when he won the title in 10min 01.57sec from Matthew Gillespie (Waves) in 10min 20.28sec. Gillespie lowered his time by 1min 08sec.
Harris displayed the mark of a champion when he stepped on the accelerator with a last 100m of 1min 11sec. It was the same as for his first lap. He averaged 1min 16sec for the other six 100m splits.
At the Canterbury championships a week earlier, Harris finished third in both the 200m backstroke and 200m butterfly in personal-best times.
He has now qualified for the national age-group championships in seven events and could add some more over the next few days of the Otago championships.
His efforts pleased his coach, Frank Wylie.
"We stepped up Patrick's training over the last two months and he now has eight training sessions a week instead of five," he said.
"He struggled at first but he has now adapted to it."
"Waves swimmers dominated the men's aged 14 and 15 1500m with Tom Wardhaugh winning in 17min 55.81sec from Kieran Oswald in 18min 04.47sec and Ben Simmers in 18min 18.12sec.
It was a personal-best time by Oswald but the biggest improvement went to Simmers who reduced his time by 1min 25sec.
Simmers (14), a boarder at John McGlashan College, comes from a sheep farm at Waikoikoi and has relished the more consistent training he has done since coming to Dunedin.
Matthew Glassford (Neptune) won the senior men's 1500m title when he edged away from Adam Simpson (Waves) over the last 200m to win in 16min 24.99sec. Simpson was timed at 16min 27.96sec.
Glassford also won the 800m title, swum in conjunction with the 1500m, when he sneaked ahead with a time of 8min 40.55sec. Simpson swam 8min 41.26sec, a personal best time by 3sec.
