KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Olympic Games-bound swimmers produced some encouraging performances on the first session of finals against the Australian Olympic team in Sydney today.
The New Zealanders are using the grand prix meet to test their progress and the racing protocols with the meet run under the Beijing Olympics format of heats in the evening and finals in the morning.
World short course champion Moss Burmester won the final of the 200m butterfly in an excellent swim while clubmate Helen Norfolk set a new national record in the 200m freestyle.
Glenn Snyders, Liz Coster and Corney Swanepoel all topped their qualifiers to move through to the knockout semifinals of the Monaco 50m sprints.
All of New Zealand's Olympic swimmers improved from last night's heat swims and all produced times close to their Beijing qualifying performances.
"It was very pleasing for them all to know that they are on the right track, given that we are still in full training and have quite a bit of work yet before we begin to taper for Beijing," Swimming New Zealand head coach Jan Cameron said.
"They all produced some excellent swims. It was very, very good and very, very pleased. We are really concentrating on our pre-race and post-race protocols for Beijing and they all got up and swam faster this morning."
Burmester led the way, topping qualifiers last night and going on to dominate the 200m butterfly final in a time of one minute 56.11 seconds, just over 1sec outside his Commonwealth record.
Norfolk established a new national record in the 200m freestyle final with an effort of 2min 00.11sec, under her old mark set at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
She finished sixth in the final dominated by the world champion Australian relay team.
Norfolk then finished second in the final of the 200m individual medley in 2min 15.44sec, 1sec outside her national record.
"That was a very solid effort from Helen who had only just finished her freestyle final. We are very happy with the way Helen is swimming. She is very focused," Cameron said.
Snyders goes through to the final four in the 50m breaststroke in the Monaco-format elimination races after clocking 28.22sec, 2/10ths outside his New Zealand record.
He also came third in the final of the 200m breaststroke in 2min 16.39sec.
Swanepoel impressed with a superb 23.76sec effort to top qualifiers for the semifinals in the Monaco 50m butterfly, only 9.100ths of a second off his own national record, although he has withdrawn from these races to concentrate on the 100m butterfly tonight.
Coster also gained a real boost for her 100m backstroke when she beat world champions Emily Seebohm and Sophie Edington in the elimination for the semifinals in the Monaco 50m backstroke, clocking 28.86sec, just 13/100ths outside the national mark.
Leading results:-
Finals
200m butterfly: Moss Burmester (NZ) 1min 56.11sec 1, Christo Wright (Australia) 1:58.20 2, Travis Nederpelt (Australia) 1:58.35 3.
200m freestyle: Felicity Gomez (Australia) 1:58.39 1. Bronte Barratt (Australia) 1:58.41 2, Ang Bainbridge (Australia) 1:59.04 3. Also: Helen Norfolk (NZ) 2:00.11 (NZ record) 6, Hayley Palmer (NZ) 2:04.65 7.
200m individual medley: Alicia Coutts (Australia) 2:12.68 1, Norfolk (NZ) 2:15.44 2, Samantha Hamill (Australia) 2:16.95 3.
200m breaststroke: Chris Sprenger (Australia) 2:12.63 1, Brenton Rickard (Australia) 2:12.81 2, Glenn Snyders (NZ) 2:16.39 3.
100m freestyle: Matt Targett (Australia) 49.51 1, Andrew Lauterstein (Australia) 49.64 2, Kenrick Monk (Australia) 49.73 3. Also: Cameron Gibson (NZ) 50.40 5.
200m backstroke: Meagen Nay (Australia) 2:09.06 1, Belinda Hocking (Australia) 2:09.21 2, Melissa Ingram (NZ) 2:11.05 3.
Monaco second round
50m breaststroke: Snyders (NZ) 28.22 1, Sprenger 28.93 2, Rickard 29.19 3.
50m butterfly: Corney Swanepoel (NZ) 23.76 1, Andrew Lauterstein (Australia) 23.87 2, Garth Kates (Australia) 23.91 3.
50m freestyle: Cate Campbell (Australia) 24.77 1, Lisbeth Trickett (Australia) 25.57 3, Palmer (NZ) 25.68 3.
- NZPA
