Daniel brings home 9-medal haul

HPK freestyle sprinter Daniel Cieplinski is in fine form after more than a year laid off by injury.

Cieplinski, 13, brought back 9 medals – 7 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze – from a swimming championship meet in Dunedin.

He had a tough year-and-a-half with a serious shoulder injury and broken wrist in three places.

Cieplinski, a student at  Macleans College, started back at swimming in January and in March he competed for the first time – a division II meet at Moana pools in Dunedin. There were more than 500 swimmers from all over New Zealand.

Daniel, a member of HPK (Howick Pakuranga) swimming club, started swimming at the age of 3 and joined competitive swimming at 8. He specialises in freestyle closely followed by backstroke.

HPK was 2nd out of 83 clubs from all over New Zealand at the Dunedin meet.

Other  individual medalists from our club included Leo Arrowsmith, Mulan Chan See, Aaron Spencer and William Waters.

Cieplinski was swimming in the 12-13 years age group and came first in five events out of seven that he entered and he won bronze for one as well.

The two other golds and one silver were for relays in which he performed very well.

He will be representing Macleans College in secondary school championships in September in Hamilton.