NZ bounce back from Burmester shock

Defending Commonwealth Games champion Moss Burmester failed to make the 200m butterfly final. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand rebounded from the shock demise of Moss Burmester with some old fashioned thrashings of hapless opponents on a medal-less first day of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Burmester's golden 200m butterfly triumph at the Melbourne Games four years ago seemed like an oasis as the 29-year-old spluttered to fourth in his heat and 10th-fastest overall, failing to reach the final and casting doubt over his longevity at the top level.

If the Games are the last major meet of a sterling career, Burmester exited his specialist event on a gutsy note.

Full list of NZ results on day one

"The swim actually felt quite good," he said.

"In fact, my best for a while, it felt a lot faster than it was. I actually eased off a bit in the last 20 metres."

His teammates did their best to atone with some commendable swims, notably Natalie Wiegersma who went under her national 200m individual medley record but was pipped for bronze by just three hundredths of a second.

Fourth place was a frustratingly familiar theme at Melbourne and there were worrying signs today as the men's artistic gymnastics team followed Wiegersma in just missing the podium.

In a day marred by several falls and a clutch of high bar mishaps, the New Zealand gymnasts tumbled short of their stated team bronze target.

Patrick Peng, Misha Koudinov and Mark Holyoake qualified for various individual finals. Peng was the most impressive in reaching three - the all-around competition and floor and vault apparatus.

The only other athlete who could have won a medal today was 20-year-old weightlifter Lou Guinares, who placed seventh in the 56kg class, breaking three senior national records in the process.

Elsewhere, New Zealanders made some loud statements in a host of early-round events.

No one was more dominant than the Silver Ferns, who raised a rare netball ton against Papua New Guinea. The lone glitch in their 102-21 virtual training run was the non-appearance of key centre Temepara George because of illness, although it isn't considered serious.

The women's hockey team diced Wales 5-1, the mixed badminton team sliced Jamaica 5-0, while Marina Erakovic clobbered Bahamas battler Nikkita Fountain in her singles tennis match before tasting mixed doubles defeat alongside Rubin Statham.

A rare outcome unfolded at the lawn bowls greens, where the men's triple of Shannon McIlroy, Andrew Todd and Richard Girvan stopped Wales from troubling the scorers in a 13-0 16-0 rout.

Coach Dave Edwards described the result as "mindblowing" before watching on as the triple lost in a tiebreak to Namibia on the last bowl of their second match.

The men's pair lost their opener but it was a good day for the women, with pair Jan Khan and Manu Timoti snaring two wins from two while the triples outclassed Botswana.

The women's table tennis team won both their matches, including a crucial 3-2 pipping of India in front of a roaring home crowd.

The squash trio Jaclyn Hawkes, Joelle King and Campbell Grayson were largely untroubled in advancing to today's third round of singles action.

Stephen Clifton was the best of New Zealand's men's and women's archers after ranking day, seeded third of 48 male competitors, while fellow-medal hopeful Shaun Teasdale was three spots behind him. The men lie third in the teams' competition and the women seventh.

Some of New Zealand's wins were landslides but there was nothing as farcical on day one as the boxing weigh-in session.

Wrongly calibrated scales wrongly recorded most boxers as overweight, prompting many to run around the athletes' village or jump into a sauna to shed the kilos.

The New Zealand contingent did no such thing, not fooled by what was obviously faulty equipment, although they are frustrated the weigh-in has been delayed.

Meanwhile, those anxious about New Zealand getting off the medal mark shouldn't have to wait long today.

Track cycling begins and features individual pursuit star Jesse Sergent, along with world class duo Eddie Dawkins and Alison Shanks in their respective time trials.

- NZPA