Swimming: Lure of Europe and Japan should boost performances

Selection for four major European meets will provide plenty of motivation for the leading swimmers at the New Zealand championships in Invercargill this weekend.

Six swimmers will be selected from the four-day championships to compete in the prestige Mare Nostram meets in Europe in June.

The events are a lead-in to the world championships in Japan.

The European meetings and the world championships will mark the start of the qualification process for next year's Commonwealth Games, with officials keen to build on the platform laid by their young swimmers at last year's Sydney Olympics.

"We had eight swimmers who qualified for Sydney and two made semifinals," acting national coach Brett Naylor said.

"That's our starting point. We are looking at that group and some others who narrowly missed the Olympics who will form the nucleus of our Commonwealth Games team, where we want to be medal contenders.

"It starts with the world championships, and those swimmers who earn selection to the Mare Nostram events in Europe will have a major advantage in that respect."

The Mare Nostram meets comprise Barcelona (June 1-3), Caret (June 5-7), Rome (June 9-10) and Monaco (June 12-13).

"We used a similar programme in 1990 leading up to the Barcelona Games," Naylor said.

"With the Olympics in Europe in 2004 we want to spend some time there."

He said swimmers had to compete in the nationals to be considered for selection, with Germany-based Vivienne Rignal the only Olympian not taking part in Invercargill.

"Our swimmers can go overseas to train. That's their choice and we have no problem with that.

"But we have limited funds and we need to support our domestic programme."

North Shore's Scott Talbot-Cameron will return from his US university scholarship at Auburn to compete in Invercargill.

He will be racing along with fellow Sydney Olympians Dean Kent, Steven Ferguson, Monique Robins (all North Shore), Jon Duncan, Liz Van Welie (Dunedin) and Helen Norfolk (Christchurch).

Others likely to push for selection to Europe include the North Shore trio of Nick Sheeran, Jolie Workman and Cameron Gibson, Karen Tait (Dunedin), Anthony van der Kraay (Roskill) and Liz Coster (Parnell).

There will also be interest in the performance of Atlanta Olympian Alison Fitch, who has moved to Jan Cameron's North Shore programme.

The championships start today, following a recommendation from the swim coaches that they should be run during the school holidays.

- NZPA