Swimming: Wiegersma powers to backstroke win

Southland swimmer Natalie Wiegersma won the 100m backstroke title at the inaugural world youth championships in Brazil last night.

The 16-year-old set a New Zealand age group record of one minute 02.41 seconds in winning the championship in Rio de Janeiro.

She sliced nearly a full second off the 10-year-old record held by Lydia Lipscombe and set the fastest time ever by any New Zealand age group swimmer.

Wiegersma was in second place at the turn but overcame Russian's Anastasia Zueva in the final 50m.

New Zealand Swimming director of coaching Clive Rushton described Wiegersma's effort as "a remarkable and outstanding performance".

"We set the qualifying for this event at 18-year international levels, so to qualify for it as a 16-year-old was very good," Rushton said.

"We felt if any of these swimmers could make a final it would be excellent, and a medal would be well beyond expectations because they are all so young."

Rushton said for Wiegersma to make such a "quantum jump" to win a world title showed the benefit of such a major international meet in the development of a swimmer.

"Until now, Natalie has swum in the Australian age groups. The opportunity to be immersed in this level of competition has brought out the absolute best in her," he said.

Wiegersma took 1.5 seconds off her previous best at the championships.

Earlier, Auckland 16-year-old Kurt Bassett finished seventh in the final of the 100m backstroke, clocking 58.08sec, just outside the New Zealand record he set in the semifinal.

The small New Zealand contingent also found their third finalist, with Bassett's fellow Mt Eden clubmate Orinoco Faamausili-Banse-Prince finishing third in his semifinal and seventh fastest to qualify for the final of the 50m freestyle.

Prince set a New Zealand age group record clocking 23.81sec, under the previous record set by Ben Pickersgill-Brown in 2003.

New Zealand day three finals result:

100m backstroke: Natalie Wiegersma (Nzl) 1:02.41 1 (NZ Age record), Anastasia Zueva (Rus) 1:02.83 2, Yanxin Zhou (Chn) 1:03.10 3.

100m backstroke: Kurt Bassett (NZL) 58.08 7.

Semifinals:

50m freestyle: Orinoco Faamausili-Banse-Prince 23.81 7 (NZ Age record).

- NZPA