Swimming: Loader to miss medal events

SYDNEY - Danyon Loader won't defend his Olympic freestyle titles at the Games in September after a disappointing swim at the Australian championships in Sydney yesterday.

Loader clocked a sluggish 1m 53.81s for the 200m freestyle, nearly 3s outside the New Zealand qualifying standard, and was bettered by 16 others.

Loader went out hard in his first 50m, timed at 26.68s, before fading to 6s off the pace set by top qualifier Michael Klim.

New Zealand manager Jan Cameron said Loader was in a slow heat which didn't help his chances.

"But he hadn't swum the times before coming here so he was never going to be in a fast heat," Cameron said.

"I would say Danyon probably hasn't had the build-up you would need coming into a meet like this and needing the fast Olympic times."

Loader still has a chance of qualifying, in the 100m butterfly heats on Thursday when he needs to improve dramatically to go under the 54.10s target mark.

It was a disappointing day for New Zealand, with no Games aspirants making a dent on qualifying times. Four 100m backstrokers were off the mark - women Monique Robins (1m 04.24s) and Hannah McLean (1m 04.61s) in their quest for 1m 03.55s, and men Scott Talbot-Cameron (58.10s) and Ross Dunwoody (59.10s) chasing 56.30s.

Jolie Workman was nearly 3s outside the women's 100m breaststroke mark with 1m 13.77s.

Dean Kent and Oliver Young swam solidly to qualify for the B-final in the 400m individual medley.

Dunedin's Elizabeth Van Welie on Saturday missed out on an A qualifying swim in the women's B final of the 400m individual medley. In the heats she had gone within 1.25s of the 4m 47.5s she needed, but slowed to 4m 51.16s later.

- NZPA