Absolute Insurance Short Course Swim Championships – Final 1 wrap

It was all girl power in the first session of finals at the Absolute Insurance Short Course Championships at Waitakere City today.

The North Shore trio of Helen Norfolk, Hayley Palmer and Melissa Ingram set New Zealand records and were joined by team-mate Liz Coster to beat the qualifying standards for the FINA world short course championships in brilliant swims at the West Wave Aquatic Centre.

This brings the total to 12 swimmers who have qualified for the Manchester championships, with six qualifying before this meet and a further six from heats last night and the first session of finals this morning.

Ingram broke the New Zealand record for the 200m backstroke twice – but a malfunction in the start mechanism meant her time could not be ratified last night. She went out in the final today clocking 2:06.26 to go under the old mark held by former club mate Hannah McLean by nearly a second.

“I was pretty disappointed to miss it last night especially to have a personal best that did not count,” Ingram said. “I knew I had to come back and get another solid swim. It’s no use swimming fast in the heats if you are not going to back it up. I’ve been working really hard and knew I could do it.”

Eighteen year old Palmer showed proof of her marked improvement over the last 12 months with a New Zealand record and qualifying swim to win the 100m freestyle. Her time of 54.36 was 14/100ths of a second inside the previous mark of the great Alison Fitch.

It was the first open national record to her coach Scott Talbot-Cameron, the former Olympian now on the coaching staff at North Shore.

“It was a terrific swim from Hayley. She did not even make the final of that event at the open championships last year so Hayley has made an amazing improvement in a relatively short time,” national coach Jan Cameron said.

“That was a very good record that she beat held by Alison Fitch and she has a tremendous future.”

The experienced Norfolk, 26, showed she is still improving when she broke her own national record by more than a second in the 400m individual medley, clocking 3:34.09.

“All of my times in training pointed to a good time so I was feeling pretty confident before the race,” Norfolk said. “I hit the wall in the breaststroke so I know I have something to work on there but I came home well on the back of all of those big miles in freestyle.”

Coster rounded off the morning when she qualified in the 100m backstroke dipping under the mark by 7/10ths of a second when she clocked 59.65s. She did this as the lead-off swimmer in the women’s medley relay.

“It was great to get it. With most of the rest of the team getting the qualifying times last night in the heats I was feeling a bit left out,” said Coster who turned 25 this week.

“I have the 100m backstroke tonight so it’s good to have the qualifying time under my belt and it’s great to be back in the sub-60 zone.”

In other finals Robert Voss won the 400m freestyle, Moss Burmester outlasted Andrew McMillan in the 200m butterfly under the qualifying mark and Glenn Snyders took out the 50m breaststroke.

Canterbury’s Annabelle Carey won the 100m breaststroke but was outside the world championship qualifying mark while Cameron Gibson, who broke his national record last night, slipped on the blocks but still won the final in 48.48s.

Veteran Dean Kent was upset in the final of the 100m individual medley by West Auckland 17-year-old Daniel Bell who set a new age group, winning in 55.53s.

The championships is running under the same format to be used at next year’s Beijing Olympics, with the heats in the evening and finals each morning, and continues until Sunday. Heats start at 6pm and finals from 10am.