Swimming: Records tumble as team selected

By NORMA WILIAMS

Nine Auckland swimmers were named in the 15-strong team to compete in the Australian Age Championships in Perth next month.

Heading the list of qualifiers is Monique Robins (North Shore), whose 100m freestyle in a time of 57.25s was the top performance of the national age-grade championships in Hamilton at the weekend.

Also listed are Olympic qualifiers Scott Talbot-Cameron (North Shore) and Helen Norfolk (Canterbury).

Others in the team are Aucklanders Natalie Bernard, Caroline Collard, Brad Herring, Mark Herring, Melissa Ingram, Hannah McLean and Carissa Thompson; Otago's Sam Caradus, Jonathan Duncan and Lara McCambridge, and the Canterbury pair Arjun Haszard and Ben Pickersgill-Brown.

North Shore and Parnell topped the championship points tally for the Cain Trophy, while Auckland's 77 gold medals gave them the War Memorial Shield ahead of Canterbury, with 28 medals, and Otago, with 14.

Robins took the Hansells Trophy for breaking a national record by the widest margin - she clipped 0.95s off the 50m butterfly mark when she clocked 28.28s.

In the last session of the championships, Robins also broke the 25m freestyle mark for 16-year-olds with her time of 26.44s and Bernard claimed the 200m butterfly record for 14-year-olds with a time of 2m 21.52s.

Meanwhile, at the world short-course swimming championships in Athens, Sweden's Therese Alshammar claimed a second freestyle world record and Neil Walker claimed a fourth world mark.

American Jenny Thompson, trounced by Alshammar in the 100m freestyle final, broke her own 100m butterfly record before Alshammar upstaged her in the 50m freestyle.

Alshammar sliced an incredible 0.5s from her 50m record, taking her December mark of 24.09s down to 23.59s.

She then went on to win her third gold medal of the four-day championships in Sweden's victorious 4 x 100m freestyle relay squad.

Walker, of the United States, also secured his third gold medal when he won the men's 100m individual medley in 52.79s.

He twice lowered the 50m backstroke world record on Saturday and shared a world record in the US men's 4 x 200m freestyle relay win.