Swimming: Women book trips to world champs

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Hannah McLean led the charge last night as five of New Zealand's leading female swimmers booked trips to July's world championships on the first night of the open national championships.

Twenty-one-year-old McLean gave the strong North Shore team a winning start at Wellington's Kilbirnie Aquatic Centre with a record-breaking swim in the 100m backstroke.

After dipping under the world championships 1m 02.93s target in the morning's heats, she returned for the semifinals and went even faster.

McLean's all-the-way win over team-mate Melissa Ingram stopped the clock at 1m 02.23s to break her own New Zealand record of 1m 02.27s set at last year's Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Her coach, Jan Cameron, expects her to go faster in tonight's final, perhaps threatening the world championships A standard of 1m 01.71s, which would almost certainly be worth a place in the final in Barcelona.

In one of the best races on the opening night, Otago's Liz Van Welie and Helen Norfolk pushed themselves all the way in the 400m individual medley final, going under the world championships standard.

Van Welie, who earlier had retained her 200m butterfly title, finished strongly to edge Norfolk in 4m 47.40s comfortably under the B mark of 4m 49.65s.Norfolk swam a personal best 4m 49.56s to dip under the target.

In the 4x200m freestyle relay, Alison Fitch had an all-the-way lead touching for Auckland in 2m 00.99s - well under the 2m 02.12s she needed for the worlds.

Fitch led clubmates McLean, Norfolk and Sarah Jackson to a New Zealand record 8m 13.15s - 17s faster than the old mark and good enough to book the quartet a place in the event at the world championships.

Cameron Gibson swam a personal best 1m 52.08s to win the 200m freestyle. Though outside the time for the worlds, his form suggests he might go close in his favoured 100m freestyle.

Gibson beat North Shore team-mate Dean Kent, later returning to record the fastest time in the 100m breaststroke edging titleholder Kieran Daly, also North Shore, to set up what promises to be a closely contested final tonight.

Kent will make his world championships bid in the individual medleys beginning with tonight's 400m final.