Swimming: Records keep tumbling at winter championships

A further five national records, including one open mark, tumbled on the penultimate night of finals at the New Zealand winter championships in Hamilton last night.

The crack North Shore combination of Natalie Bernard, Alison Fitch, Hannah McLean and Diane Bui-Duyet brought Auckland home to win the women's 4x100m freestyle relay in 3min 45.9s, nearly five seconds under their own mark set last year.

The other tumble befell veteran sprint champion Jon Winter, who seriously misjudged the start and was disqualified after falling off the blocks in the 50m butterfly final at the Te Rapa pool.

The Atlanta Olympian, who staged a remarkable comeback to equal his New Zealand record in the finals of this event at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, was the top qualifier for last night's final.

"I have never made that mistake before in a 50m race, and I must have swum in about 1000 of them in my career," he said.

"That's something you might expect from a newcomer, not from me."

This year Winter missed one of his events at the national open championships when he was caught in traffic getting to the pool.

His demise opened the way for 16-year-old South African Corney Swanepoel to claim his first New Zealand title, edging out Levin's James Pallesen. Swanepoel has moved to New Zealand with his family, swimming with the North Shore club.

Christchurch's Helen Norfolk continued her pleasing and overdue return to outstanding form, comfortably beating rival Liz Van Welie to add the women's 200m individual medley crown to the 400m final she won earlier in the meet.

The other two finals went across the Tasman, with Andrew Burns edging out Scott Talbot-Cameron of North Shore to win the 50m backstroke, and Tasmanian Sara Milton completing her hat-trick of wins in breaststroke finals.

A group of in-form New Zealand internationals will be hunting records on the final night of competition tonight, led by the North Shore quartet of Fitch, McLean, Dean Kent and Cameron Gibson.

Fitch topped qualifiers for the 50m freestyle in 25.91s, less than half a second off Toni Jeffs' national record.

McLean was even closer, 0.33s off the record of clubmate Monique Robins after clocking 29.09s to head qualifiers in the 50m backstroke.

Kent was 0.70s off Winter's mark for the 100m individual medley, heading finalists with 56.00s, while Gibson topped qualifiers for the 100m freestyle with 51.19s.