Swimming: Three qualifiers take World Champs team to 14

A further three New Zealand swimmers tonight qualified for July's world championships in Montreal, taking the team to 14.

And with one day to go of the national swimming championships at the Kilbirnie Aquatic Centre in Wellington, the team for the world championships could grow still further.

The three swimmers who made the team tonight were 50m breaststroker Zoe Baker, and Liz Coster and Annabelle Carey who will form half of the 4x100m medley.

World 50m breaststroke record-holder Baker broke her own New Zealand record and twice went under the world championship qualifying mark.

Baker, the former British swimmer who has changed her allegiances to New Zealand, swam 31.21 seconds for the 50m breaststroke in the morning heat, well inside both her national record and the Montreal qualifying time.

She again went under the qualifying time in the evening semifinal.

Christchurch's Carey will join the North Shore trio of Coster, Hannah McLean and Alison Fitch for the medley relay.

Also tonight, already-qualified Moss Burmester added a fourth national title to his swag when he won the 200m freestyle final to the 400m freestyle, 100m and 200m butterfly titles he won earlier in the meet.

He also finished second to North Shore teammate Corney Swanepoel in the final of the 50m butterfly as the North Shore swimmers continued their march through the finals, now having taken 18 of the 22 on offer so far.

McLean took out the women's 100m backstroke and Dean Kent in the 100m breaststroke.

Kent upset more fancied clubmates Ben Labowitch and Glenn Snyders to win his final .

Tauranga's Liz Van Welie continued her remarkable record to claim the final of the women's 200m butterfly for the eighth consecutive time.

The former Dunedin swimmer is second only to another Otago swimmer, Dave Gerrard who won 10 national titles in a row.

The Jasi club from Christchurch celebrated their first open title of the meet when 18-year-old Georgina Toomey defended her 50m butterfly crown, edging out record holder Nichola Chellingworth and Atlanta 1996 Olympian Liz Coster.

The Auckland team of McLean, Coster, Sarah Vettoretti and Fitch broke the New Zealand provincial record in winning the women's 4x100m medley relay in four minutes 11.36 seconds, more than 5s inside the previous mark set in 2000.

- NZPA