Jesse Reynolds wins National Titles at Pan Pacific Swimming Championships

Jesse Reynolds has missed out on medals by margins as small as 0.08 seconds, and has set personal best times in nearly every event he competed in at the 2014 Para Pan Pacific Championships held in Pasadena California over last week.  On his first day of competition, Jesse raced in the 400m Freestyle, qualifying for the finals and up against Paralympic and Commonwealth Games medalists.  In the final he just missed out on a bronze medal by 2 one-hundreths of a second.  On day two he swam in the 100m Butterfly, which was going to be a challenge as he had been nursing a shoulder injury in the weeks before competition.  In the heats he swam a personal best time to qualify, then promptly beat that time in the final and was unlucky to miss the bronze medal by a second.  Day three saw him racing in the 100m Freestyle, which is not his favourite event, yet he still achieved a personal best time in both the heat and the final.  Day four was a very big day, with Jesse set to compete in two events.  The first event, the 200m Individual Medley saw him swim a personal best time and finish fourth, again by a very narrow margin.  Finally, he competed in the 100m Backstroke, giving the race his all to qualify again with a personal best time, and again, narrowly missing out on the medals, finishing fourth.  Jesse's achievements have seen him move up the IPC World Ranking charts, and have also resulted in five new Paralympic New Zealand National Titles.  Congratulations to Jesse on these wonderful achievements, and we eagerly await his next set of results as he builds towards a very exciting Olympic year in 2016.