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Fourth relay team qualifies on penultimate night for swimmers

9th December 2005

Four swimmers who qualified earlier in the meet added a second qualifying performances while a fourth relay team met the standard on the penultimate night of finals at the Commonwealth Games Trials in Auckland tonight.

North Shore swimmers Helen Norfolk, Nichola Chellingworth and Liz Coster along with West Auckland Aquatics’ Daniel Sharp all scored their second qualifying performances at the West Wave Aquatic Centre in Waitakere City.

Medley star Dean Kent topped his semifinal of the 100m breaststroke in 1:03.62, well inside the mark to qualify a men’s team in the 4x100m medley relay for Melbourne. This comprised individual times in the other disciplines earlier in the meet.

However there was heartache for North Shore’s Corney Swanepoel and Canterbury’s Annabelle Carey who both narrowly missed individual qualification in the finals of the 50m butterfly and 100m breaststroke respectively.

Brisbane-based Chellingworth added the 50m freestyle to the 100m title she won earlier in the meet and credits much of her progress to her Queensland home.

``I’ve been there seven years now and I get to swim with some of the best sprinters in the world,’’ said Chellingworth. She has a chance to lower that mark in tomorrow’s final.

Norfolk blitzed the field in the final of the 200m individual medley, clocking 2:16.16, close to her own national record, and nearly two seconds inside the qualifying standard for Melbourne.

``I knew I had to go faster in the final. That’s been my strategy this week,’’ Norfolk said. ``At the halfway mark I saw Natalie (Wiegersma) was quite close so I had to increase the tempo.’’

Coster, 22, a finalist at the world championships this year, dominated the semifinals of the 100m butterfly clocking 1:00.72, only 0.25 seconds outside her own national record and well inside the qualifying standard.

West Auckland’s Daniel Sharp also beat his second qualifying mark for Melbourne, swimming solo to clock 58.81 in the 100m freestyle for swimmers with a disability. The partially sighted swimmer qualified in the 50m earlier this week and was a medalist in the Athens Paralympics.

Swanepoel could not improve on his semifinal time, clocking 26.31s, just 0.1 seconds outside the qualifying standard for Melbourne in the 50m butterfly.

He does have one more chance in the medley relay tomorrow night, with selectors also having the options to include the 19-year-old as a relay alternate depending on the race schedule of his North Shore clubmate Moss Burmester who will have a heavy schedule in Melbourne.

``It’s been kind of tough. I really went for it tonight but didn’t quite get it,’’ Swanepoel said. ``The aim was to swim just as fast as I could but I didn’t feel too great out there.’’

Swanepoel said he looked forward to getting back into training and re-evaluate his progress with his coaches. His performance did qualify him for the World Short Course Championships in China in April.

It was also nearly but not quite for Christchurch breaststroker Annabelle Cary, who broke her own New Zealand record twice today but was a fingertip away from the Melbourne mark. The 16-year-old impressed in lowering her record from 1:11.05 to 1:10.51, just 0.4secs from qualifying.

However her time leaves her as the leading candidate for the women’s medley relay team.

In other semifinal action Scott Talbot-Cameron (North Shore) went fastest in the 50m backstroke in 26.55, clubmate Cameron Gibson topped the 100m freestyle in 50.81, Australia’s Michelle Engleman in the 50m freestyle in a new visitor’s record of 25.42s, and Coster in the 50m backstroke in 29.53s.

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