KEY POINTS:
Top butterflyer Moss Burmester took out the 200m title at the Telstra Grand Prix Meet in Brisbane yesterday.
Burmester, the Commonwealth Games gold medallist, won in a comfortable 2:00.22 at the Chandler Centre.
He had topped the qualifiers, recording 2:02.49 in his heat. The meet organisers followed the Beijing Olympic format, with heats in the evening and finals in the morning.
Coach Jan Cameron said that while the time was some way from his best, it was a convincing display given they had flown from United States on Friday after three weeks' training with world and Olympic champion Michael Phelps at the US Olympic training base in Colorado Springs.
"Moss has put in three hard weeks of training. We were very fortunate to be invited by Bob Bowman to join his University of Michigan and Club Wolverine elite swimmers," Cameron said. "It was very demanding. We trained either two or three sessions every day, with each session around 90 minutes, and then there was an hour of dry training each day, too - either weights, pilates or cardio."
Cameron said Burmester had responded superbly to the challenge. "In one session he went head to head with Phelps, who did backstroke over 40 sets of 50m with short rest.
"They did 10 x 100m kick drill on 1min 50sec and then one more to see how fast they could go. Phelps did 1:03 and Moss did 1:07, which was the second fastest from the entire squad.
"We do a similar drill at home and Moss went five seconds faster than he has done before.
"It's been exhilarating for both of us. I've been fortunate to talk and watch both Bob Bowman and the great Michigan coach Jon Urbanchek.
"It's been a wonderful experience and something we must continue if we are to push our swimmers to their real potential."
Burmester competes in the heats of the 200m freestyle tonight and returns to New Zealand tomorrow.
Palmerston North teenager Cara Baker, 16, finished fourth in the final of the 800m freestyle in Brisbane, clocking 8:52.62.