Not even jellyfish will keep Jake Stephens out of the water – but it wasn’t always this way.
The 12-year-old Lindisfarne College student started swimming lessons when he was four.
“He hated it,” his mother Karrie Stephens said.
“He would scream and cry, but I knew he needed to get some water confidence.”
But pretty soon he had become comfortable in the pool and joined Napier Aquatic Centre’s Aquahawks squad.
Jake competes in longer events, usually 100 and 400 metres, with his first 800m race earlier this month.
“It takes me a couple of lengths to wind up and get faster,” he said.
“I concentrate for the first two lengths, but then I think about random stuff but I’m still counting in my head, then I concentrate again for the last lengths.”
In his most recent competitions he collected two golds and three silvers at the New Zealand AIMS Games, then a bronze at the New Zealand Junior Festival.
He also holds two records at school and seven at his club.
Karrie said Jake was particularly proud of his bronze winning festival race.
“He gave it his all,” she said.
“He was pleased about how he swam not because of the result, but that was great too.”
This past summer Jake signed up to Westshore’s Surf Life Saving Club.
Previously he had been a pool swimmer, not too keen on the ocean, but Karrie reassured him on the first day – when he would not go out past the first wave.
“I had just paid his registration and was going to see him to tell him and he was swimming out by the port.”
Surf Life Saving and Jake were a natural fit.
He soon became a favourite of sea creatures, collecting at least two jellyfish stings each session while everyone else seemed to escape sting-free.
He went on to win gold and bronze medals at swimming events during the Surf Life Saving national competition in Mount Manganui.
His goal long term is the Olympics but he is also aiming for a scholarship to a US university to swim, and study law.
Currently he trains six days a week with the next goal of the East Coast swimming championship later in June.
