Olympic veterans impress in Oceania Championships
New Zealand’s first three-time Olympic swimmers, Helen Norfolk and Dean Kent (pictured), impressed in the final morning of heats at the Oceania Swim Championships in Christchurch today.
The pair easily qualified in the 200m individual medley ahead of tonight’s finals, which may be the last time that the pair appear in a major meet in this country.
The top performer in the heats of the 200m medley was Wellington’s John Gatfield, who needed to achieve a qualifying performance under 2:07.94 to cement his selection to next month’s World Youth Championships after injury prevented him from competing at the trials. He achieved that easily to top all qualifiers in 2:06.87 with Kent easing home third fastest.
Norfolk topped the women’s qualifiers in 2:18.95 ahead of Australia’s Jessica Legge and Blair Evans.
Beijing Olympian Glenn Snyders looked all class as the fastest qualifier in the men’s 200m breaststroke while West Auckland’s Mark Herring broke the Oceania Championship record to best the heats in the 50m freestyle with Australia’s Rebecca Ohlwien fastest in the women.
The meet concludes this evening from 6.30pm.
