Swimming: Tickets to Delhi Games will come at stretch

Glenn Snyders attempts to qualify this week. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand's top swimmers must meet tough qualifying standards to secure a ticket to Delhi in October, and they must do it in the finals of their various events at this week's New Zealand open championships in Henderson, which double as the Commonwealth Games trials.

They are the same qualifying times set for the Beijing Olympics when the controversial rubber swim suits were starting to make their impact on world records.

Australia opted for 2007 standards - an era before the proliferation of the polyurethane suits - but they have considerably more swimmers and anyone they send to Delhi will be competitive.

Swimming New Zealand general manager Jan Cameron makes no apologies for the tough standards, saying their job is to "get people up the world rankings".

"The standards are tough but not unachievable," she said. "We will have a small but strong and very potent team [at the Commonwealth Games]. If we have any more than 10 or 12, I would be delighted."

Eighteen swimmers competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006. They won six medals (one gold, one silver, four bronze), which represented New Zealand's best return of any sport and equalled their best haul from any Games outside of New Zealand.

A number have retired since then, however, including Melbourne medallists Dean Kent, Cameron Gibson, Hannah McLean, Alison Fitch and Helen Norfolk.

This partly explains their poor results since, along with the fact they were left behind as other nations embraced the swim suits and other swimmers simply under-achieved.

Melbourne gold medallist Moss Burmester is still the leader of the swim team, but there are others who have the potential to medal in Delhi. One is breaststroker Glenn Snyders.

The 22-year-old won a junior Pan-Pacifics title and has been ranked among the world's top 10 in his favourite event, the 100m breaststroke, but he's often failed to deliver at the biggest meets.

At Beijing, he admitted the occasion got the better of him: "I didn't go so well," Snyders says of the 100m breaststroke. "I was a bit nervous, a bit edgy. I guess I went out too hard, my stroke rate was too high and I couldn't pull it back.

'I was gutted. I was confident going into the race but nerves played a big part. I know how to race and I should have just believed in myself."

He finished 19th in the 100m but illustrated his potential when, a couple of days later, he smashed the New Zealand record in the 200m by two seconds to qualify for the last 16 and also set a good time in his leg of the 4x100m medley relay, when New Zealand finished a highly creditable fifth.

Last year didn't go so well for Snyders. His world championships campaign was hampered by a knee injury, requiring surgery, but he's hoping 2010 will be a breakthrough year.

"I'm definitely after a medal [at Delhi]," he says, and hopes to qualify for the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke, along with the medley relay.

Cameron said Snyders was still some way from reaching his peak but a medal at Delhi was not out of the question. He will, though, come up against a strong posse of swimmers from Australia and the UK, while the world champion is South African.

"He will have to reach big [to medal in Delhi] but he has that potential in him," Cameron said. " At Beijing he was so intense, he over-tried. He wanted it so much he just didn't control his emotions.

"The people he's swimming against tend to be a bit older. His best years are ahead of him and the London Olympics in 2012 will be a fantastic time for him. He will be hitting them perfectly."