Swimming: Coach still holds Olympic hopes for Loader and Jeffs

By PETER JESSUP

Debate over the New Zealand swimming team for the Sydney Olympics centres on the struggles of older competitors to qualify, with team coach Brett Naylor still keen to add the experience of Danyon Loader and Toni Jeffs.

The last chance for those two and Trent Bray is the Oceania championships in Christchurch in a fortnight, with Naylor still rating Loader the most technically excellent swimmer in the country and giving him a "not bad" chance of meeting the required time for the 200m freestyle.

There has been criticism of the fact that Loader has no chance to qualify in the other event in which he won a gold medal at Atlanta, the 400m freestyle, given the one spot open to this country in events and Swimming NZ's naming of Dunedin teenager Jonathan Duncan as its representative.

Naylor batted that away, pointing out that the line had to be drawn somewhere because of the amount of work required in preparation for Sydney.

Loader did not make the first eight at the national championships at the Henderson pool in early April, finishing second in the B final with a time over 4m 12s, around 16s outside the qualifying time (his medal-winning time in Atlanta was 3m 47.97s).

He went from Henderson to the Australian national championships and swam a slower time.

"In order to prepare properly for the Olympics in that event there's a lot of work required and clearly he hadn't done that work," Naylor said.

Loader's time for the 200m freestyle at Henderson was 1m 55.32s, in Australia it was 1m 53.81 (in his Atlanta win it was 1m 47.63s).

He can make the Sydney Games in that event by beating the Fina A-time of 1m 49.8s in Christchurch

Naylor did not rule out Loader's making the required 4s gain, saying: "He's done it before."

Loader's times might be good enough for a relay team, and that now is also looking to be Trent Bray's best hope, but New Zealand have not done enough to qualify one so far and are looking increasingly unlikely to do so.

Jeffs has moved to Dunedin to work in the Otago University flume pool as she seeks to beat the Fina A-mark in the 50m after Vivienne Rignall bettered Jeffs' Henderson time and leapfrogged over her into the New Zealand team.

The difference between Jeff's case and Duncan's is that SNZ had not named Jeffs in its team despite her 26.03s time at Henderson beating the Fina B-mark that was the first qualifying step.

Jeffs can still go to Sydney if she betters the Fina A-mark of 26.42s, but Rignall's 25.92s at a Sheffield meeting last week made her fastest and therefore first choice when the team were named last week.

Jeffs has criticised SNZ for failing to warn her that Rignall could get past her Henderson time, even though the Sheffield meeting was seven days after SNZ's cut-off point of May 20 for times to be considered.

Rignall told SNZ in November last year that she would be unable to make the Henderson and Australian meetings, and told the selectors she was aiming for a qualifying time at the Fina-approved Sheffield event.

As it turned out, she did swim in Henderson, apparently bowing to advice that it would be politically correct for her to make the New Zealand nationals, given her German residency, and after she finished second to Jeffs told everyone she was going back to Sheffield to qualify.

The pair travelled and competed together in Europe before Henderson, and SNZ is puzzled at Jeffs' apparent misconception.

The New Zealand team, bar Rignall, come together on the Saturday before the June 24 Oceania meeting opening. The Australians are sending a 50-strong team, but no Thorpes, Klims and O'Neills because their Olympic team are dispersed around the globe for training and competition.

The Olympics – a Herald series

Official Sydney 2000 web site