After having an incredible summer winning bronze in the 400, 800 and 1500 freestyle events at the World Championships and then capturing wins in both the 400 and 800 freestyle at the World Cup stop in Eindhoven Lauren Boyle is set to return to competition at this year’s New Zealand Short Course Championships.
“For the past four weeks I’ve just been easing back into the swimming but we have been doing some cross training – spinning on the bike and circuits down in the weight room so it hasn’t been specifically swimming focused,” said Boyle.
At last year’s championship meet Boyle posted times of 4:02.26 and 8:15.73 in the 400 and 800 freestyle events, but this year she will be swimming a lot more than just freestyle,” I set some really fast times after the world champs and I have no idea how close or far away I’ll be from those, but I’m swimming lots of different events. I’m doing nine races including breaststroke, butterfly and medley just to do something different,” said Boyle.
Also included in the more than 4000 event entries will Sophie Pascoe, Mary Fisher and Nikita Howarth who are all coming off of extremely impressive IPC World Championship performances and Gabrielle Fa’amausili who won the women’s 50 backstroke at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Dubai.
The championships will be held at the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre from September 29-October 3rd.
The day following the championship meet the inaugural Swimming New Zealand Zonal Championship will be held.
The one-day competition comprises four zone teams, each including 20 swimmers 15 years and under and 20 swimmers 16 years and over. The competition will pit the best of each age group from throughout the country in a quick-fire format on Friday 4 October.
Live results can be found here