Swimming: Palmer turns sights on 100m after 50m near-miss

No extra seats were booked on the plane to the world championships in Shanghai after Hayley Palmer last night missed the qualifying in the 50m freestyle by .07s.

While it would have been nice for Palmer to have earned her slot a day early, she knows her best chance will come tonight in the 100m at the New Zealand championships in Auckland. .

"It's nice to know I've got the speed because it hasn't been a big focus for me this year," Palmer said.

Palmer created ripples last year when she left the Swimming New Zealand programme to train with Randy Reese in Florida.

With 18 Olympic gold medallists under his charge Reese has, as Palmer said, "forgotten more about what it takes to win an Olympic medal than most of the coaches here have ever learnt".

The 21-year-old said she had gone back to basics and rediscovered her love for swimming and was feeling "great" about tonight's race.

Qualifiers might have been thin on the water but there was good news in the 200m individual medley, where North Shore's Mitchell Donaldson held off clubmate Steven Kent.

Donaldson, 18, was a prodigiously talented age group swimmer who nearly gave the sport away recently after battling a rotator cuff injury and a lack of motivation.

His personal best time of 2m 04.24s was not good enough to get him to Shanghai, but it was confirmation for him that his career is back on track.

"For a year to 18 months I have struggled for motivation. My injury led to slower times. I'm a racer and I like to swim fast. When I couldn't do that it was hard to stay motivated," Donaldson said.

For the past four months he has been back training "full on", has never felt better and hopes to break into the New Zealand team by next year.

In other races last night, Hawkes Bay swimmer Daniel Bell pipped fellow Commonwealth Games silver medallist Gareth Kean in the 50m backstroke, while in the women's race, Sophia Batchelor beat Emily Thomas.

Natalie Wiegersma added to her medley championship by adding the 200m butterfly, finishing in 2m 13.85s.

Lauren Boyle will tonight attempt to qualify for the July world championships in the 800m freestyle. She might also drag open water specialist Cara Baker, who blitzed the field in setting a national record in the non-Olympic class 1500m earlier this week, under the 8m 35.98s Fina 'A' time.