Swimming: Thomas earns New Zealand's second medal

A silver medal to Gisborne swimmer Emily Thomas gave New Zealand their second medal at the Fina World Youth Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday.

Thomas, 16, set a national age group record in the 50m backstroke final, clocking 29.58s as she finished just one-tenth of a second behind Chinese winner Yanxin Zhou.

This took a quarter of a second off the previous record held by teammate Natalie Wiegersma, who won a gold medal in the 100m backstroke earlier in the meet.

Auckland's Kurt Bassett completed an outstanding meet for the small New Zealand contingent when he came sixth in the final of the 200m backstroke.