Nathan Capp is on a fast track he hopes will take him to the Commonwealth Games next year and then onto the Rio Olympics in 2016.
His swim to finish second in the 1500m freestyle final at the Queensland swimming championships in Brisbane last week showed just how far he has progressed in recent years.
The 21-year-old from Tauranga smashed nearly five seconds off the New Zealand record, recording 15:22.83 in finishing second behind young Australian star Matthew Levings.
Capp competes for the Greerton club, where he first started swimming aged 11 but for the past three years he has been based at the High Performance Centre in Auckland.
His latest success continues his remarkable and rapid progress into the elite ranks of New Zealand swimming.