World record sparks national age group swim championships

Swimming New Zealand may have unearthed two young stars of the future in Canterbury’s Sophia Batchelor and North Shore’s Chloe Francis who were the standouts in the national age group championships that finished in Christchurch last night.

Batchelor, who swims for the Aqua Gym club under coach Leanne Speechly, could not improve on her six national records on the final night at QEII Leisure Centre. She did add two further New Zealand titles and showed that she could surprise in next month’s Commonwealth Games Trials in Auckland.

Francis, coached by Scott Talbot at North Shore, broke her third national age record in winning the girls’ 16 years 200m individual medley in 2:16.99. This broke the previous 17-year-old record held by the great Anna Wilson by more than two seconds and is only two seconds from the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games.

This was the highlight swim of the night, earning 854 FINA points.

Auckland’s super talented Michael Mincham broke his third national mark this week when he took out the 1500m freestyle for boys 13 years, clocking 16:39.49.

The fastest of the 1500m times went to Taranaki’s Dylan Dunlop-Barrett (Bell Block) who won the 17-18 years division in a slick 15:54.71.

Swimming New Zealand’s Jan Cameron said she was delighted with the quality at the top end of the meet and also the improved standards from a wide cross-section of clubs especially in the South Island.

Full results: http://swimmingnz.org.nz/results/?mt_id=42