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The records continued to fall on the second morning of heats at the Oceania Swim Championships in Christchurch today.

After eight championship records fell on last night’s finals, a further six championship marks were set in the heats this morning.

The main excitement came in the men’s 100m freestyle where three successive heats went under the championship mark, firstly by Australian Reece Turner who headed heat four in 50.61s, then Olympian Cameron Gibson in 50.36 in the penultimate heat and finally West Auckland’s Mark Herring with a 49.83s effort in the final heat.

The only disappointment was for North Shore’s William Benson, who was second in his heat to Gibson in 50.99s. Benson is currently in the New Zealand men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team which is seeking late qualification for the Beijing Olympics, currently sitting fourth fastest in the world of the countries yet to qualify. The four fastest non-qualified nations at the end of this month will be added to the 12 already qualified for Beijing.

The proviso is that all the team must achieve a FINA B qualifying time of 50.95, with Benson only 4/100ths off that mark, after missing by 2/100ths of a second at the Olympic Trials.

With only two swimmers from any country qualifying for the A final tonight and one into the B final, Benson, as the fourth fastest New Zealander this morning, will need a team-mate to scratch from tonight’s final to allow him a further qualifying opportunity.

The other records this morning went to New Zealanders Liz Coster, who topped qualifiers in the 50m backstroke in 29.08s, Daniel Bell who was fastest in the 50m backstroke in 26.45s and Hayley Palmer fastest qualifier in the 100m freestyle in 55.55s.

Tonight’s finals start at 6.30pm.