Helen Norfolk continued her outstanding form with a New Zealand record and world short course championships qualifying time in the 400m freestyle yesterday.
In the second session of the national short course championships, her North Shore team-mate William Benson, 20, was one of the young guns to shine,also setting a national record in upsetting Moss Burmester and Corney Swanepoel when winning the 50m butterfly final. His emotions were mixed because he was an agonising 0.01s outside qualifying for the world championships.
Thirteen swimmers have so far qualified for those world championships and Norfolk was again impressive as she charged to a new national record of 4m 5.93s, nearly 2s under clubmate Melissa Ingram's mark.
She attacked early, going through the 200m in 2m before fading slightly in the final 100m.
"I'm really happy with that. I didn't quite have it in the second half and couldn't come home as I wanted," Norfolk said. "But it feels good to be 26 and still doing personal bests and New Zealand records. It shows I'm not too old yet."
She certainly isn't - her outstanding meeting means she has now qualified for three events at the world championships in England in April.
Benson held off his more illustrious clubmates Burmester and Swanepoel with a powerful finish to win in 23.78s, 0.02s under Swanepoel's New Zealand record set last month in Europe. Benson was a fingernail off the world championships qualifying time of 23.77s.
"That was really disappointing for William. A world championship qualifying time would have been real reward for him," national coach Jan Cameron said.
Two other young swimmers shone yesterday, with North Shore's Hayley Palmer, 18, adding two more titles in the 50m freestyle and 100m individual medley - both won in national age group records.
West Auckland's Daniel Bell, 17, who qualified for the world championships on Friday, attacked individual medley king Dean Kent in the 200m medley final. Bell led through 100m but two poor turns in the breaststroke allowed Kent to power home.
"It's good to win but it's great to see some young talent coming through," Kent said.
