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The World University Games in Thailand next week will form an important first step for many of New Zealand’s best swimmers as they target the Beijing Olympics.

The 18-strong squad leave for Bangkok today with the swim programme starting next Wednesday.

The squad contains nine members of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games team including gold medalist Moss Burmester (pictured) and bronze medalists Cameron Gibson, Melissa Ingram and Helen Norfolk along with Andrew McMillan, Glenn Snyders, Corney Swanepoel, Liz Coster, and Georgina Toomey.

Head coach Jan Cameron said New Zealanders do not appreciate the high quality of the World University Games.

“It is a major sporting event with more than 8000 competitors over a multi sport games,” Cameron said.

“It is a target meet for us. The Europeans have many of their best swimmers here, as does Japan and China. The US send their third and fourth ranked swimmers from their recent nationals while the Australians have a number of world class swimmers like Alice Mills competing.

“Aside from the Olympics and world championships, this event is probably ranked next and has more depth than the Commonwealth Games.

“It is very good preparation towards the Olympics for us. It is on at the same time as Beijing – in fact our swim programme begins 12 months to the day from the Olympics.

“We are competing in the same region of the world in very similar conditions.

“And we are part of a multi-sport competition of very high standard. For us it is invaluable preparation”

Cameron said it is also a benefit for the squad to get used to swimming long course.

The team will form the nucleus of the swimmers pushing to qualify for Beijing aside from the likes of veteran Dean Kent and leading school swimmers in Penny Marshall, Natalie Wiegersma, Kane Radford, Kurt Bassett and Orinoco Faamausili-Banse.

Most of the team come from the High Performance Institute at Millennium while assistant coach Donna Bouzaid will join up with some of her West Auckland squad who have been preparing in Bath, England including Toomey and UK-based Cameron Gibson and Te Rina Taite.

The full team to compete in the World University Games is:
Moss Burmester (Massey Auckland), Cameron Gibson (Bath UK), Mark Herring (Auckland), Michael Jack (Auckland), Andrew McMillan (Otago), Bryn Murphy (Otago), Glenn Snyders (AUT), Cameron Stanley (Auckland), Corney Swanepoel (Massey Auckland), Robert Voss (Massey Auckland), John Zulch (Massey Auckland), Kelly Bentley (Massey Wellington), Elizabeth Coster (Auckland), Melissa Ingram (Auckland), Helen Norfolk (Massey Auckland), Te Rina Taite (Bath UK), Georgina Toomey (Canterbury), Sarah Vettoretti (Auckland).

Coaches: Jan Cameron, Thomas Ansorg, Donna Bouzaid. Manager: Mark Saunders.