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The established stars continued to shine on the penultimate morning of finals at the Absolute Insurance Youth and Open Swimming Championships in Christchurch this morning.

World championship swimmers Annabelle Carey, Corney Swanepoel and Helen Norfolk claimed the three titles up for grabs at the QE2 Aquatic Centre.

All were won in emphatic fashion with the young pretenders unable to make many in-roads against the established elite squad.

Carey (Aquagym, Christchurch) took out the 100m breaststroke title in a comfortable 1:10.88, well clear of Sarah Vettoretti (West Auckland Aquatics) and Annabelle Simpson (Queenstown).

Swanepoel (North Shore) won the 50m butterfly in 23.86s, just outside the new national record he set yesterday, but with clear water to Australian Jason Cohen and clubmate Moss Burmester.

Helen Norfolk romped home to win the 200m individual medley in 2:16.33, with daylight back to Natalie Wiegersma (Southland) and Ayla Dunlop-Barrett (North Shore).

North Shore’s Glenn Snyders enjoyed another outstanding effort to beat England’s Commonwealth record-holder Darren Mew in the preliminary final of the 100m breaststroke today.

Synders, who broke his own national record to pip Mew in the heats last night, repeated the result today in a slower time to set up an intriguing final on the last day of competition tomorrow morning.

Despite a tiring world championship campaign, North Shore’s Liz Coster will have a busy last morning, showing her versatility to top qualifiers in three preliminary finals today – the 50m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 50m backstroke.

West Auckland’s Mark Herring was fastest in the preliminary final of the 100m freestyle while Kurt Bassett (Laser Mt Eden) was the only non-world championship swimmer to head the qualifiers for the final of the 50m backstroke.

Full results: www.swimmingnz.org.nz

For further information:

Ian Hepenstall, Sports Media NZ, Tel 0275 613181, E: ianhep@xtra.co.nz