Neo Salomonsson was the star Otago performer at the New Zealand secondary schools championships in Wellington at the weekend.
Salomonsson, an Otago Boys’ High School pupil, claimed seven medals and broke no fewer than four Otago age-group records.
The 14-year-old butterfly specialist managed a record sweep across all three distances of his dominant stroke.
His gold medal at the event came in the 200m butterfly, and his time of 2min 14.57sec took 0.8sec off the previous Otago record set by Han Zhang in 2012.
He lowered his own Otago record in the 50m butterfly with a time of 26.69sec, slicing almost half a second off the time he set last month and winning a silver medal.
Salomonsson also won silver in the 100m butterfly with a time of 59.85sec, taking 0.04sec off the previous record set by Courtland Ellis in 2014.
He won a third silver in the 50m backstroke in 27.6sec, lowering by 0.1sec his own record set at the Otago short-course championships last month.
Salomonsson completed the set with bronze medals in the 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke, and was fourth in the 50m freestyle.
It capped a wonderful year for the Kiwi club swimmer, who won two silver medals at the New Zealand age group championships in April and broke 10 Otago age-group records over the 2022-23 season.
The other outstanding Otago performer at the New Zealand schools championships was the youngest member of the squad.
St Hilda’s Collegiate pupil Lily McGrath won a silver and two bronze medals in the girls 13 years grade.
She won silver in the 100m medley and bronze in the 200m backstroke and 200m freestyle.
Charlotte Aburn (St Hilda’s) was fourth in the girls 15 years 200m freestyle and fifth in the 400m freestyle.
Overall, the 11 Otago swimmers posted 44 personal best times and 29 top-eight placings at the meeting. There were also a handful of qualifying times met for the New Zealand short-course championships.
