Two medals, a New Zealand age group record, two Otago records and a handful of personal best times made for a happy Otago camp.
The star of the show was Neptune swimmer Esme Paterson, who smashed Liz van Welie’s Otago open 100m butterfly record of 1min 2.68sec set in 2002.
Paterson soared through the pool to break one of the oldest open female records in the Otago books.
She clocked 1min 2.61sec in the 100m fly heat, and a similar time (1min 2.63sec) as she finished fourth in the final, less than 1sec off the podium.
Otago swimming’s two big guns each won medals on Wednesday night.
Olympian Erika Fairweather was relatively untroubled in winning the 200m freestyle.
She clocked 1min 59.77sec, a New Zealand 18 years age group record, in the heat.
Fairweather went even faster, 1min 57.8sec, in the final, just outside her personal best.
It also obliterated a 21-year-old Otago age group record, meaning Fairweather now holds Otago records for the distance at every age bracket from 11 years to open.
Fairweather holds an astonishing 56 Otago swimming records.
Deans, swimming from lane two, won bronze behind Fairweather and Eve Thomas (Coast) in 2min 1.57sec.
It was a personal best in the 200m freestyle for Deans, putting her in contention for relay selection for upcoming international meets.
Neptune swimmer Curtis Mellsopp continued his streak of personal bests, clocking 58.94sec in the 100m butterfly heats to lower his best time by about 0.5sec.
That effort was matched by Nicole Lockie, whose 1min 5.94sec in the women’s 100m fly heats was a personal best by more than 0.5sec.
