Swimming: Kiwis leave Hobart with nine medals

New Zealand swimmers won a further four medals on the final day of the Australian short course championships in Hobart last night.

North Shore sprinter Hayley Palmer led the way with a silver medal in the final of the 50m freestyle, with three bronze medals to Daniel Bell (North Shore) in the 100m individual medley, Moss Burmester (International Training Centre) in the 200m butterfly and Glenn Snyders (ITC) in the in the 50m breaststroke.

This brought the New Zealand tally to nine medals and 17 national records at the meet.

Bell, 19, led the way with three medals followed by two each to Snyders and Corney Swanepoel with the other medals to Burmester and Palmer.

Palmer, 19, who broke the New Zealand record in the heats, lowered the time again to 24.39sec in a superb swim in the final, sandwiched between Australians with Sally Foster winning in 23.94sec and Beijing medallist Alice Mills third in 24.59sec.

Bell also lowered his national record again in the final of the 100m individual pursuit, finishing third behind Australians Leith Brodie and Tom D'Orsogna in 53.49sec, nearly .4sec faster than the record he set in the semifinals.

Snyders was slightly outside his record set in the heats of the 50m breaststroke to finish third in 27.13sec won by world championship finalist Chris Sprenger, while Burmester was below his best but still managed third place in the 200m butterfly final in 1min 52.45sec.

There were three other New Zealand finalists on the last day of competition with Andrew McMillan reducing his personal best again to 48.04 in finishing eighth in the 100m freestyle, only .1sec outside the national record, Emily Thomas was sixth in the 50m backstroke while Cameron Stanley was fourth in the 200m backstroke final in a slick 1min 54.33sec.

"It's been a long campaign but I think the Australian short course has been very valuable for us. Some of the swimmers who struggled a little at the world championships in Rome showed that the swims there were a bit of an aberration with some world class times here," head coach Jan Cameron said.

"We've seen further international qualify swims by the likes of Daniel Bell, Glenn Snyders, Hayley Palmer and Corney Swanepoel in particular and also excellent progress from Andrew McMillan and Emily Thomas especially."

- NZPA