Swimming: Kent has Olympic medal in sights

By DANIEL GILHOOLY

Dean Kent has a medal at next year's Athens Olympics in his sights and is following the trail blazed by Atlanta Games double gold medallist Danyon Loader.

Kent, 24, emerged as New Zealand's first Olympic podium prospect since Loader's triumph in 1996, with three victories at the World Cup short-course meets in Europe over the past fortnight.

A class above strong fields in Paris, Stockholm and Berlin, Kent powered to three 400m individual medley golds, complemented by two silvers and a bronze over 200m.

He easily lowered his own national short-course records in both events.

But it was his 400m time of 4m 06.66s in Berlin on Sunday that thrust him into a spotlight likely to be fixed on him until the starting blocks at Athens.

His Auckland coach, Jan Cameron, said the Games in 19 months were now firmly in their thoughts.

"We're working towards an Olympic medal in the 400m individual medley. That's our focus at the moment. That's our goal," Cameron said in Berlin, where a tired five-strong New Zealand team were sleeping after a day's sightseeing.

"We've still got quite a bit to get off for the world record [short-course 4m 04.24s), but world records are what happens when everything goes right and when the time is right.

"There is still a lot of hard work to do."

Loader's 200m and 400m freestyle success at Atlanta was attributed to an exhaustive build-up in which he and coach Duncan Laing chased any top-class competition overseas - including all the World Cup short-course events. Cameron advocates the same for Kent.

His 400m time is the quickest by anyone in the world over a 25m short-course pool for two years.

Transferring to long-course would be no problem, said Cameron, who believes Kent is better suited to a 50m pool.

The first major test will be the July world championships in Barcelona.

Kent's times overshadowed some excellent results in Europe for other New Zealand swimmers, who set a total of seven national short-course records.

Freestyler Alison Fitch broke the 50m (25.53s) and 200m (1m 57.36s) marks, Helen Norfolk completed the women's 200m medley in 2m 12.70s, and Hannah McLean went under the 50m (28.38s) and 100m (59.54s) backstroke marks, the latter being the first time a New Zealand woman has broken one minute.

The swimmers are expected home tomorrow.

- NZPA