Beijing bound junior swimmers in record breaking form
Young Olympic swimmers Daniel Bell and Orinoco Faamausili-Banse produced record performances on the first day of the FINA World Youth Championships in Mexico.
Bell (West Auckland Aquatics) broke the New Zealand Open record for the 100m backstroke while Faamausili-Banse (Laser Mt Eden) set a national age group mark in the 100m freestyle on the opening day of the championships.
Both showed they are in good form for Beijing where they will compete in the medley and freestyle relays respectively.
Bell, 18, won his semifinal to qualify for tomorrow’s final of the 100m backstroke. He clocked 55.62 to top his heat, but went even better to record 54.99s in the semifinal, which broke his own national open record of 55.26 set at the Olympic Trials.
US-based team-mate Kurt Bassett (Laser Mt Eden), a 200m backstroke specialist, was third in the same semifinal to give New Zealand a grand chance of finishing on the podium in tomorrow’s final.
Faamausili-Banse, 17, broke his own national age group record in the 100m freestyle, clocking 50.29s as the lead-out swimmer in the freestyle relay that finished seventh fastest but had to withdraw from the final after illness to one of the team members.
In other swims, Rotorua’s Kane Radford produced a personal best 3:50.26 to finish 10th in the heads of the 400m freestyle and John Gatfield (SwimZone Racing) recorded his best in heats of the 100m breaststroke.
The championships finish on Monday (NZ time)
New Zealand results, day 1:
Heats:
400m freestyle: Kane Radford (Rotorua) 3:50.26, 10; Shane Patience (Waves, Dunedin) 4:02.99, 23.
100m backstroke: Daniel Bell (West Auckland Aquatics) 55.62, 1 (NZ Age Record); Kurt Bassett (Laser Mt Eden) 56.34, 2.
400m individual medley: Ellen Quirke (Capital) 4:58.88, 16.
100m breaststroke: John Gatfield (SwimZone, Wgtn) 1:08.40, 35.
400m freestyle relay: New Zealand (O Faamausili-Banse, Bell, Gatfield, Bassett) 3:26.70, 7.
Semifinal:
100m backstroke: Bell 54.99, 1 (NZ Open Record); Ben Treffers (AUS) 55.93, 2; Bassett 56.21, 3.
