Swimming: Performances impress at NZ Champs

The campaign for medals in next year's Commonwealth Games began with a record number of New Zealand swimmers qualifying for July's world championships. A team of 18 swimmers will travel to the July meet in Montreal after being named at the conclusion of the New Zealand Championships in Wellington last night.

One further relay and three individual best times were reached on the final night of the championships at the Kilbirnie Aquatic Centre, led by world record holder Zoe Baker (Jasi) and the North Shore pair of Hannah McLean and Dean Kent. A womens 4x100m freestyle relay team also qualified to boost the team for Montreal.

The performances were praised by national director of coaching Clive Rushton.

"The size of the team is a recognition of the improvement in our depth and provides us with an excellent platform to build on," Rushton said. "There is a lot of hard work still to be done by this group from now before July though.

 

Rushton said he was again delighted with the outstanding performance from Jan Cameron's North Shore squad, which picked up 24 of the 32 individual titles this week.

 

The Capital club picked up three titles through 16-year-olds Kelly Bentley and Shannon Clayton, with two to Jasi in Christchurch through Georgina Toomey and Baker and one each to Waterhole (Auckland), Greerton (Bay of Plenty) and West Auckland Aquatics.

Kent led the way when he won his eighth consecutive 400m individual medley title in emphatic fashion tonight, going under the qualifying mark for Montreal by nearly two seconds.

The 26-year-old, who won three titles this week, wants to continue in the sport long enough to pip Dave Gerrard's long-standing record of 10 consecutive national titles

McLean retained her 200m backstroke title in an emphatic 2:12.89, the fourth fastest time in the world this year and two seconds inside the world championships qualifying mark.

 

Helen Norfolk was pushed in the 400m individual medley final by Bentley but managed to retain her title in 4:50.96, outside the world championships time, with record holder Liz Van Welie in third place.

Earlier Baker went under the world championship mark for the third time in as many swims this week, clocking 31.70.

The other titles on the night went to Daniel Ryan (Waterhole, Auckland) in the 1500m freestyle, Clayton in the 800m freestyle, Ben Labowitch (North Shore) in the 200m breaststroke, Cameron Gibson (North Shore) in the 100m backstroke, Alison Fitch (North Shore) in the 100m freestyle and Mark Herring (West Auckland) in the 50m freestyle.

The meet was completed with a qualifying performance in the womens 4x100m freestyle relay, with a composite effort by North Shore's Fitch, Te Rina Taite and McLean along with Christchurch teenager Georgina Toomey (Jasi club) with another North Shore swimmer, Nichola Chellingworth, selected as back up.

The New Zealand team for the World Championships in Montreal in July. Moss Burmester, Liz Coster, Alison Fitch, Cameron Gibson, Melissa Ingram, Dean Kent, Hannah McLean, Helen Norfolk, Corney Swanepoel, Glenn Snyders, Scott Talbot-Cameron, Te Rina Taite, Nichola Chellingworth (all North Shore); Annabelle Carey (Aquagym, Christchurch), Kelly Bentley (Capital, Wellington), Zoe Baker, Georgina Toomey (Jasi, Christchurch), Lauren Boyle (West Auckland Aquatics)