Swimming: Shore pair grab national records

The North Shore duo of Hannah McLean and Dean Kent bagged national records to highlight the final night of the New Zealand winter championships in Hamilton last night.

The new records in the women's 50m backstroke and men's 100m individual medley lifted the total of New Zealand open records to six at the five-day championships at the Te Rapa pool.

McLean set her second national mark of the meet with she dipped under the mark of clubmate Monique Robins to win the 50m backstroke.

McLean, a Commonwealth Games representative, clocked 28.48s. The previous mark was 28.76s.

Kent showed he was back to his best, claiming the full set of individual medley titles, winning easily in 55.26s and sneaking under Jon Winters' 1998 record of 55.30s.

Another North Shore swimmer to shine this week was former Waikato freestyler Alison Fitch, who added the 50m and 200m freestyle titles last night.

In the longer distance, she was half a second off Helen Norfolk's record but dipped under the two-minute mark to record 1m 59.43s.

And she was only 0.2s off Toni Jeffs' record in winning the 50m freestyle in 25.77s, just ahead of McLean.

Australian Michael Higgins won one of the most exciting swims of the night, when he held off the Commonwealth Games pair of Kent and Tauranga's Moss Burmester in the 200m butterfly, with only half a second separating the trio.

Fellow Australians Andrew Burns of New South Wales and Lara Davenport of Tasmania won the men's 200m backstroke and women's 100m butterfly titles respectively.

Burns held off North Shore's Scott Talbot-Cameron to clock 1m 56.60s and Davenport eased home ahead of the Aquagym pairing from Christchurch, Megan Allan and Norfolk.

Two other Games representatives claimed titles on the final night - butterfly exponent Liz Van Welie of Otago won the 200m breaststroke and backstroker Cameron Gibson from North Shore claimed the 100m freestyle.

North Shore rounded off a superb meet with Kieran Daly winning the 50m breaststroke.

"Overall it was another pleasing meet with our top swimmers all making further progress," said national coaching director Clive Rushton.

"It's been a big programme for them, with the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs, and yet we saw national records and personal bests from them."