Membership

The New Zealand team of Norfolk, Melissa Ingram, Corney Swanepoel, Glenn Snyders and Liz Coster – all from the SNZ High Performance Centre - qualified for 10 finals and earned seven medals in the last meet of their tour which finished this afternoon.

Norfolk, who has been concentrating on freestyle over the past 18 months, won both individual medley finals, including a New Zealand record in the 200 IM. Norfolk also took out the 200 IM meet record.

Ingram won the 200m backstroke in a new meet record and personal best, while Snyders took out the 100m breaststroke.

Coster won the 100m backstroke final after topping the qualifiers while Swanepoel was second in the 100m butterfly.

“It’s pleasing results from the squad. It shows they are on track,” Swimming New Zealand head coach Jan Cameron said.

“They went over on a very heavy workload and the plan was to use the three meets to sharpen. We expected their best times at this meet.

“We will now start to get them ready for the World University Games in Bangkok next month.”

Norfolk was just 1/100^th of a second off claiming the New Zealand record in winning the 400m individual medley in 4:44.57, finishing comfortably clear. She led from the start to win the 200m medley, and her time of 2:15.04 regained her national record that she lost to talented southland teenager Natalie Wiegersma in the US earlier this month.

The 25-year-old finished third in the 400m freestyle, a second outside her national record and was seventh in the 200m freestyle final to cap off an outstanding meet.

Ingram, a former world championship short course medalist, produced a personal best of 2:12.00 to win the final of the 200m backstroke, setting a new meet record.

It pipped the time of 2:12.32 set by Tomoko Hagewara 10 years ago in 1997.

"I'm still in hard training at the moment, and so I wasn't expecting a personal-best time, so I was really excited," Ingram said. "This is my third meet in America so far. We came over here to get some racing. So we get some sun and have some fun."

Snyders took out the 100m breaststroke in a slick 1:03.22 after leading throughout, and was third in the 200m breaststroke final in 2:19.68.

Coster enjoyed a very solid meet in both backstroke and freestyle, capping it off with a win in the 100m backstroke in 1:02.00, while Swanepoel was second in the 100m butterfly along with sixth placings in the 50m and 100m freestyle finals.

The group returns to New Zealand tomorrow to join up with the rest of their squad in final preparations for the World University Games


New Zealand results:
100m freestyle: Liz Coster 57.68s, 18^th; Corney Swanepoel 51.07, 6^th.
200m backstroke: Melissa Ingram 2:12.00, 1^st (Meet Record)
400m freestyle: Helen Norfolk 4:13.35, 3^rd.
200m freestyle: Norfolk 2:02.48, 7^th; Ingram 2:02.85, 10^th.
50m freestyle: Coster 26.69, 20^th; Swanepoel 23.28, 6^th.
400m individual medley: Norfolk 4:44.57, 1^st.
100m butterfly: Swanepoel 53.69, 2^nd.
100m breaststroke: Snyders 1:03.22, 1^st.
200m breaststroke: Snyders 2:19.68, 3^rd.
200m individual medley: Norfolk 2:15.04, 1^st (NZ Record) (Meet Record)
100m backstroke: Coster 1:02.30, 1^st.