Swimming: Targeting 2012 medal haul

Lauren Boyle is a big medal prospect for the 2012 Olympics. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The New Zealand swimmers' performances at the world championships in Shanghai this week have been cause for both celebration and concern.

Swimming New Zealand needs medals and finals at the London Olympics to be considered for Sparc funding as a targeted sport beyond the Games.

The Olympics are less than a year away and tangible change is yet to be made to SNZ's administration and coaching staff despite the release of the scathing Ineson report in mid-June.

But with two individual swimmers (Lauren Boyle and Gareth Kean) and the 4x200m women's freestyle relay team (Boyle, Amaka Gessler, Penny Marshall and Tash Hind) making finals, it at least gives New Zealand a platform to launch a decent 2012 campaign.

SNZ has been quick to push the line this "New Zealand team has become the most successful in terms of number of finals and semifinals" at world championships, with four finals and six semifinal appearances at the time of writing.

However, at the 2005 world championships in Montreal, New Zealand had eight finalists and an estimated 13 semifinalists during Jan Cameron's prime as a coach.

Boyle, originally training in California, was the star of the 2011 edition. In addition to the eighth-placed relay finish, the 23-year-old came sixth in the 400m freestyle and raced the 800m final overnight.

It proves New Zealand's best swimmers do not necessarily have to work at the Millennium Institute to succeed.

The other individual finalist, Gareth Kean in the 100m backstroke, is coached by Hurring in Wellington.

Boyle has been back at the Millennium Institute since May under the coaching of former SNZ head coach Mark Regan, who also mentored breaststroker Glenn Snyders to three semifinals. Two of those were in the Olympic distances of 100m and 200m.

Regan also coached the women's 4x200m relay team. For his efforts, the former Denmark coach looks set to be downgraded again from his role as "senior performance coach" to simply "performance coach" under a "proposed staffing realignment" paper put out by SNZ's new high performance governance committee.

His future in the sport in New Zealand has been in doubt before and with a potential snub like that, insiders say it would be no surprise if he considered his options.

Among other concerns was Daniel Bell's failure to produce any meaningful result in his specialist 100m backstroke, in which he won silver at the Commonwealth Games.

He finished 23rd overall, missing the semifinals and raising questions over his suitability for an Olympic scholarship. Finishing outside the top 16 means his Sparc performance enhancement grant will be under threat.