Swimming: NZ haul in 10 more medals at Oceania champs

New Zealand's weary Olympic swimmers dug deep to grab most of the spoils on the final pool session at the Oceania championships in Fiji tonight.

The New Zealanders grabbed 10 medals, including a gold each to the North Shore trio of Dean Kent, Corney Swanepoel and Liz Coster.

The team also bagged four silver and three bronze medals to bring their overall tally to 28 with the 10km open water events to complete the championships tomorrow.

The Olympic squad trained through the championships with two sessions each day in addition to the morning heats and evening finals at the new outdoor 50m pool in Suva.

The youngest of the Athens-bound North Shore squad, 18-year-old Swanepoel, set a new championship record on the way to winning the 50m butterfly final.

He clocked 24.19sec when he topped qualifiers in the semifinals, only 0.2sec outside his own New Zealand record. The Rangitoto College star went marginally slower in the final but enough to win his second gold medal of the championships.

Coster took out the 100m butterfly in an impressive 1min 00.95sec, only 0.5secs outside her own New Zealand record. She finished with two gold and a silver this week.

Kent, after a relatively quiet championship, showed his steel and fitness to win the 200m individual medley in a slick 2min 04.78sec, two seconds outside his own national record.

Fellow North Shore Olympian Helen Norfolk finished as the most successful New Zealand swimmer with four medals, including a silver tonight in the 200m individual medley. Her outstanding 2min 17.57sec was only 0.57sec outside the long-standing national mark held by Anna Wilson.

The 400m medley relay squads both won silver and could not repeat last night's feat of outgunning the Australians.

Other medallists tonight were Southland's Richard Adamson with third place in the 200m breaststroke, Wellington's Shannon Clayton showing her versatility in placing third in the 200m backstroke after gold in the 5km open water swim and Capital clubmate Kelly Bentley in the 100m breaststroke.

Others to impress included Roskill's Matt Palmer, who further reduced his personal best finishing fifth in the 100m freestyle, Scott-Talbot-Cameron and North Shore teammate Cameron Gibson with solid efforts in the 100m backstroke final, Alison Fitch and Ben Labowitch, both North Shore, who were fourth in the 200m freestyle and 200m breaststroke respectively.

New Zealand results

Men

100m backstroke: Scott Talbot-Cameron (North Shore) 57.97sec, 1; Cameron Gibson (North Shore) 58.24, 5; Lewis Williams (Roskill) 1:00.46, 7.

100m freestyle: Matt Palmer (West Auckland Aquatics) 52.22, 5; Ben Pickersgill-Brown (Aquagym, Chch) 54.63, 8.

200m breaststroke: Richard Adamson (Southland) 2:22.95, 3; Ben Labowitch (North Shore) 2:23.12, 4.

200m individual medley: Dean Kent (North Shore) 2:04.78, 1; Daniel Ryan (Waterhole, Auck) 2:15.94, 5; Dylan McNeice (Aquagym) 2:16.95, 6.

50m butterfly: Corney Swanepoel (North Shore) 24.25, 1; Dominic Toomey (Jasi, Chch) 25.32, 5.

1500m freestyle: Ryan 16:10.18, 4; Bryn Murphy (Southland) 16:22.21, 5; Michael Jack (North Shore) 16:39.25, 6.

400m medley relay: New Zealand (Talbot-Cameron, Labowitch, Swanepoel, Gibson) 3:48.87, 2.

Women

100m breaststroke: Kelly Bentley (Capital, Wgtn) 1:16.47, 3.

100m butterfly: Liz Coster (North Shore) 1:00.95, 1; Georgina Toomey (Jasi) 1:03.13, 5.

50m freestyle: Alison Fitch (North Shore) 26.80, 2; Bella Franks (Capital) 27.32, 7; Te Rina Taite (Kiwi, Manawatu) 27.47, 8.

200m backstroke: Shannon Clayton (Capital) 2:18.89, 3; Kelly Newcombe (West Auckland) 2:20.18, 4.

200m individual medley: Helen Norfolk (North Shore) 2:17.57, 2; Bentley 2:25.53, 5.

200m freestyle: Fitch 2:03.68, 4; Rebecca Linton (Howick Pakuranga) 2:05.93, 5; Nathalie Bernard (North Shore) 2:08.36, 6.

400m medley relay: New Zealand (Coster, Norfolk, Toomey, Fitch) 4:18.87, 2.

- NZPA