Kokoro Frost, National Samoan swimmer from Manase and Fasitoo’uta, took out two long-standing men’s open national records at the New Zealand Short Course Nationals earlier this month. After his success on Team Samoa for the Pacific Games in landing 4 age national records, he elevated his game and took over two open records in 2019 New Zealand Championships.
Previous record holder Winter Heaven who held both the 50m and 100m backstroke records since 2014 have been frozen out by Frosty, a strong sprinter who is dominating the short course in backstroke.
17-year old Frost hit a time of 26.63 in the 50m back and placed 8th overall in A finals and 4th in age group. His 100m backstroke sits right at the one-minute mark with a 1:00.05.
Frost reflected after the race and commented, “To prepare for NZSC I had to ensure I was tapering and hitting times I needed to be at. Just making sure I had a good feel for the water and focussing on my race plan during time trials in training. Every time I go into a race, my goal is to PB (personal best). I live by the saying, “focus on the performance, and the result will follow”. At NZSC I pb’d in all my races but one, so I was happy with that.”
National Coach Schuster added that she is pleased Kokoro is taking his game up to the level he is trained for. She commented that Kokoro has tremendous potential in his key events of backstroke and butterfly and is impressed he is committed to having a broader repertoire of events to support his position on the next Team Samoa.
The Kapiti high school senior has his eyes set on attending Victoria University next year in a Bachelor of Communication majoring in Intercultural Communication with minor in Samoan Studies. Concurrently, he is ramping up his training programme for the upcoming summer and new year. Frost adds, “looking forward, I wish to build on my middle-distance races such as 200m back and 200m IM, as well as working on my back end, especially swimming long course metres. I hope to continue to improve my times and work in the pool.”
2020 brings deep competition at the Oceania Championships held in Fiji mid-June and Frost is ready for that next challenge and hungry for more personal best times and national records achievements along the way.
SAMOA SWIMMING 
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