Swimming: Swim stars shine at age champs

Swimming New Zealand may have unearthed two young future stars in Canterbury's Sophia Batchelor and North Shore's Chloe Francis who were the standouts at the national age-group championships which finished in Christchurch on Saturday.

Batchelor, who swims for the Aqua Gym club, could not improve on her six national records on the final night at QEII Leisure Centre.

She did add two further New Zealand titles and showed that she could surprise in next month's Commonwealth Games trials in Auckland.

Francis broke her third national age record, winning the girls' 16 years 200m individual medley in two minutes 16.99 seconds. This broke the 17-year-old record held by Anna Wilson by more than 2sec and is 2sec from the Commonwealth Games qualifying time.

Auckland's Michael Mincham broke his third national mark of the week when he took out the 1500m freestyle for boys 13 years, clocking 16min 39.49sec.

The fastest of the 1500m times went to Taranaki's Dylan Dunlop-Barrett, who won the 17-18 years division in a slick 15min 54.71sec.

Swimming New Zealand's Jan Cameron said she was delighted with the quality at the top end of the meet and also the improved standards from a wide cross-section of clubs, especially in the South Island.

- NZPA