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New Zealand swimmers made a solid start to competition on the first day of the Pan Pacific Championships in Canada.

Backstrokers Hannah McLean and Liz Coster were the stars of the show, finishing fourth and fifth respectively in the final of the women’s 100m at Victoria.

New Zealand swimmers qualified for six finals with Coster and McLean in A finals while Helen Norfolk, Lauren Boyle, Melissa Ingram and Moss Burmester swam in B finals.

Head coach Jan Cameron, who has set realistic targets for her swimmers this week after many had lengthy breaks out of the water following the Commonwealth Games, was satisfied with the first day.

“Both Hannah and Liz had excellent swims tonight. On those times both are now in the top-10 in the world which is great as we look ahead to the worlds next year and on to Beijing,” Cameron said.

McLean, the Commonwealth record holder, slipped into the final with the restriction of only two swimmers per country allowed in the A final. However she showed her big race temperament with a splendid effort from the outside lane to finish in 1:01.53, which was only 7/10ths outside her national and Commonwealth record.

“Hannah has been training in Europe mostly on her own and so this shows her class. It was a very good swim.”

Coster, a finalist in the butterfly at the last world championships, has impressed in training with the backstroke. The North Shore swimmer set a personal best to record the eighth fastest qualifying time in the heats, and went under that again with a 1:01.78 for fifth place, taking a full second off her previous best.

“I knew that I could do that sort of time because of the sets I’ve been achieving in training,” Coster said. “Even though I made the finals at the worlds my track record in finals has not been that good. I have tended to go slower as the meet went on.

“I’ve been working hard with my coaches and wanted to stay more relaxed and more composed. It was really important that I was able to step up and then get faster. I am really pleased with that.”

Coster said the 100m backstroke was her target swim for the meet and now she can take a more relaxed approach to her other swims, the 100m butterfly and the 50m and 100m freestyle.

And she will have a decision on which stroke to concentrate on.

“I will be having a chat to my coaches. Certainly I am not in the top-10 in the world for butterfly so it looks like it will be the backstroke at least for this cycle.

“However I can’t give the butterfly away because right now I am still the fastest and that’s important for our medley relay team. That relay is one of our best medal prospects and there’s no-one coming up to challenge my times yet. So it’s important that I keep up the butterfly as well.”

Clubmate Ingram placed seventh in the B final.

Norfolk, the national record holder, maintained her edge over fellow Commonwealth Games representative Lauren Boyle to finish fifth and sixth respectively in the B final of the 200m freestyle, with both outside their best.

Burmester, the Commonwealth Games gold medalist, finished fourth in the B final of his favoured 200m butterfly. He clocked 1:59.37 in the final, slightly faster than in the morning heat. He had a busy time out of the water following his success in Melbourne, and only recently returned to training after a three-week holiday.

“We weren’t expecting too much from Moss considering the time he has had out of the water. We set a target for him to go under two minutes, and while that’s a way from his best, it was a fair effort,” Cameron said.

Cameron said there was an excellent atmosphere at the pool, boosted with two world records tonight int he 200m butterfly to Australian Jessicah Schipper and the outstanding American Michael Phelps.

The meet finishes on Monday (NZ time)

Day 1 finals results:

200m freestyle:
Women’s B final: Helen Norfolk 2:02.80, 5^th; Lauren Boyle 2:03.04, 6.

100m backstroke:
Women’s A final: Hannah McLean 1:01.53, 4; Liz Coster 1:01.78, 5.
Women's B final: Melissa Ingram 1:03.21, 7.

200m butterfly:
Men's B final: Moss Burmester 1:589.37, 4^th.