Swimming: Deserved rest for swim champ

New Zealand's most versatile and outstanding swimmer, Dean Kent, reckons he deserves to enjoy his Christmas dinner. The North Shore swimmer finished with six titles when the New Zealand summer short course championships wound up at Waitakere City last night.

Kent, 26, believes he is in the best form of his life and is motivated to climb to new heights as he builds towards the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

His summer campaign included three victories in the Fina World Cup in Durban and Melbourne before returning to become the most successful swimmer at the short course meet. Coach Jan Cameron set Kent a demanding schedule at the three-day meet including individual wins in the 100m, 200m and 400m medley, 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle.

"I'm really pleased with the campaign but I'm tired and looking forward to the Christmas break, Kent said. "I'm really happy with my form at the world cups and to come back and swim a big schedule here this week was pleasing.

He says he is more motivated than ever as he looks forward to the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

"It was different from four years ago when I did not know what to do. I'm committed to the Commonwealth Games and this is a really good springboard before we get into the really serious training after Christmas." His North Shore club dominated the championships, winning 25 of 34 individual titles. Kent won five with clubmates Helen Norfolk and Corney Swanepoel winning four each.

Champions on the final night included Swanepoel with two wins, Norfolk, Kent, Hannah McLean, Alison Fitch from North Shore.

World recordholder Zoe Baker, the British swimmer who resides in New Zealand, took out her favoured 50m breaststroke title to go with the 50m butterfly from earlier in the meet. Others to shine included Manchester Commonwealth Games swimmer Liz van Welie (Greerton, BOP) in the 200m butterfly, Richard Adamson (Aquagym, Canterbury) in the 200m breaststroke, Roskill's Lewis Williams in the 100m backstroke and Moss Burmester (Otumoetai, BOP) in the 1500m freestyle.

There were four national age group records to John Gatfield (Swim City, Upper Hutt) in the 14 years 100m backstroke in 58.41 Kendall Cochrane (Greerton, BOP) 15 years 200m freestyle, her fourth record of the meet and Cara Baker (Kiwi West, Manawatu) 14 years in the 200m medley.

The meet finished on a high note with the Auckland men's team of North Shore's Swanepoel, Cameron Gibson, Steven Ferguson and Kent clipping two seconds off the New Zealand record in the 4x100m freestyle relay.