Swimming: The life of a swimmer - train, eat and sleep

New Zealand's Olympic swimming squad will turn up the heat on their Athens campaign at the Oceania championships in Fiji starting tomorrow.

Four of the team, along with six in line for selection in the relays for Athens, are part of a 41-strong squad who will compete in the week-long championships in Suva.

National director of coaching Clive Rushton is not expecting record times from the squad, who face an exhausting week of heavy training loads and competition.

"The competition is always good for them, and importantly it's a chance for us to swim outdoors in the sun, which is the same conditions as we will face in Athens," Rushton said.

"But they are all in very heavy mileage right now. The Athens squad, including the relay swimmers, will be training twice a day, covering 7-8km in each session. On top of that, there are morning heats and evening finals.

"They will be in the pool at 5.30 every morning for training, warm-ups and heats from 8am. Their second training session is at 3pm, with finals from 5pm.

"Right now it's train, eat, sleep and not much else, and therefore obviously I'm not expecting fast times from them."

Rushton said the squad would also be using the championships at the Olympic Pool to experiment with outdoor conditions, including trialling different kinds of sunscreen.

New Zealand Swimming have sent a powerful squad to the championships, with the champion North Shore club leading the way with 17 competitors. Aqua Gym (Canterbury) and Capital (Wellington) have four each.

- NZPA