The Auckland swimming championships proved useful for the New Zealand team competing in the world championships next month.
The swimmers used the event as race practice and though few records were broken, there were some close races. One of the feature races was the 100m butterfly where CommonwealthGames gold medallist Moss Burmester won in 54s ahead of Corney Swanepoel who finished at 54.25s.
Hannah McLean was first with fellow international Liz Coster second in the 100m backstroke, and Dean Kent cruised into first in the 200m medley in a time of 2m.02s, nearly 10s ahead of second-placed Robert Voss.
Sixteen-year-old Kane Radford from Rotorua was beaten in the 1500m freestyle by Daniel Ryan from Waterhole in Glen Eden by 14s. Radford, who was a late addition to the world championships team, has dominated the ocean swim series around the country and finished in 16m 20.65s.
Helen Norfolk broke the Auckland 800m freestyle record with her time of 8m 53.63s, nearly 3s under the previous best but still a way off the 8m 35.57s New Zealand record set by Philippa Langrell at the Olympics in 1992.
There was a dead heat in the women's 400m freestyle as North Shore teammates Penelope Marshall and Melissa Ingram both touched the wall in 4m 25.78s.
National coach Jan Cameron said that with a month to go she was not unhappy with her swimmers but reserved her judgment until the world champs. "As a coach you never want to say too much and be too happy just yet. The swimmers are hard at work at the moment."
