Swimming: Burmester building up campaign for Commonwealth Games

Swimmer Moss Burmester is keen to get his 2010 Commonwealth Games aspirations back on track.

Along with New Zealand's other leading swimmers, Burmester will be in action at the national short course championships starting in Christchurch tomorrow. The 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, placed fourth at last year's Beijing Olympics, admitted his world championships campaign this year had been a speed bump amid the continuous progress he has achieved over the past five years.

Burmester missed the final of his specialist event, the 200m butterfly, in Rome in July, a result which has impacted negatively on his funding.

"My funding is based on the results achieved at the worlds. I will have to sort out my options and how I can address this shortfall now without compromising my future ongoing swimming goals," Burmester said.

"I know that Rome wasn't an indicator of what I was capable of doing, as all my training and times leading up to it had been better than ever before."

Among those looking to advance their claims in Christchurch are Kurt Bassett and the North Shore trio of sprinter Hayley Palmer, Daniel Bell and Andrew McMillan. There will be a welcome return for Melissa Ingram, a former world short course championship medallist, who has been training well since coming back after missing out on the world championships.

Swimming New Zealand high performance manager Jan Cameron was also looking to a number of developing swimmers to push themselves into early calculations as they built towards next year's Commonwealth Games.

- NZPA