Swimming: Swanepoel uses long wait to his advantage

1.00pm

ATHENS - Butterfly swimmer Corney Swanepoel will use the long wait for his Olympic event to do some intense swotting.

The highest-ranked New Zealand swimmer at the Games, ranked sixth in the world in 100m butterfly last month, will compete on the sixth day of the competition.

While that sounds like an agonising wait for a pumped-up 18-year-old, Swanepoel said it was positive for his 100m butterfly.

"It will be cool," he told NZPA. "By the time it comes around for me to swim I will pretty much know how the set-up works.

"What you try and do is see how long the starters hold the start.

"From there you try to anticipate how long he will hold it for your race.

"Just finding out the small things will make a difference."

Swanepoel is looking for a cutting edge to get him off the blocks fast, but not so fast to break and be disqualified.

"That would be terrible," he said.

While waiting for his own big day he will be at the pool supporting his 12 New Zealand teammates.

Games seedings put Swanepoel at eighth in a race headed by American ace Michael Phelps, touted by many as a likely Olympic superstar.

With eight swimmers to make the final, seedings place Swanepoel on a knife edge.

"There are a lot of people right behind me who won't want to give up a finals spot easily," he said.

While he would like to break his own New Zealand record, his first goal was to make the semifinals, he said.

"Once I get there I will re-evaluate everything, see how I'm going."

He does not like talk that he is a medal contender.

"You do hear that kind of thing every now and again," he said.

"I try to block that out because then you try to focus too much on the result, not what you've actually got to do to get there.

"Obviously that would be awesome if it happened. but I don't want to think about that."

Swanepoel is clearly New Zealand's beat prospect in the Olympic pool, which is outdoors, open to the intense Athens sun.

Of his teammates, only Helen Norfolk makes it inside the top 20, in the 400m individual medley. Dean Kent rates a individual medley semifinal prospect.

Backstrokers Hannah McLean and Cameron Gibson and 200m butterfly exponent Moss Burmester appeal as the strongest prospects among the others.

Coach Todd Mason said the ambition was for all swimmers to progress past the heats, by swimming one of the fastest 16 times.

An outdoor pool would present difficulties for the backstrokers and on the backstroke leg of the medley, Mason said.

"You've got nothing to line yourself up on, like you have in an indoor pool," he said.

"It's a different skill, swimming backstroke outdoor.

"Some people have to adjust their head position so they can see the lane rope, others just go by feel really they are aware of where they are at."

Kent will kick off the New Zealand campaign on Saturday morning when he swims in the 400m individual medley heats.

On that day Elizabeth Coster will contest the 100m butterfly heats, Burmester the 400m freestyle heats, and Norfolk the 400m individual medley heats.

- NZPA