Gold, Bronze and Commonwealth Records

New Zealand has won two medals on the final day of the FINA World Short Course Championships in Manchester today.

Moss Burmester has become the first New Zealand swimmer to win an individual gold medal at the world short course championships, claiming victory in the 200m butterfly. This was followed by a stunning performance from the scratch men's 4x100m medley relay that won bronze behind Russia and USA.

"It's a pretty awesome feeling to stand on top of the podium at a world championship and hear the New Zealand anthem," Burmester said."We thought it was within reach. The competition here was tough and in the end I won by a bit more than I thought I would."

New Zealand has only won one gold medal at the world short course championships before, to the men's relay team in 1995, along with seven silver medals, three of them to Trent Bray, and two bronze medals. The kiwis finished the campaign with the two world championship medals, 21 New Zealand records and qualified for 11 finals. Helen Norfolk led the way making three finals with Burmester two, while Norfolk and Glenn Snyders both set four national records.

National coach Jan Cameron was over the moon with the team effort and especially the gold medal for Burmester. "It was absolutely awesome. Moss was brave and just soared like an eagle. We've instilled in him over the last few years to reach for the sky - and he did that today," Cameron said. "It was a team effort with Thomas Ansorg and myself in the coaching and a fantastic support team around Moss. We are fortunately now to have the backing to put the necessary support in place."

"The relay swim was brilliant, taking eight seconds off the previous New Zealand record is astonishing." "Thomas has done most of the prep with this team and talked to them about just freeing themselves up and doing it for the team. Certainly the win by Moss just before their race gave them that real boost.

"It's been a great championship and we have got everything we wanted out of it. Now it's home and refocus on the big job looking ahead to Beijing."

Burmester cruised through his morning heat to qualify sixth fastest but blitzed the field in the final to win in 1:51.05, a new world championship record and only 3/10ths of a second off the world record. Burmester, while delighted, said he is not getting too carried away.

"It's a fantastic confidence boost for me and a nice title to have. But the real focus is on the Olympics. This has given me a real lift to work even harder now through to Beijing."
Burmester led from the front, turning in 25.15 seconds and then produced three further splits of 28.3, 28.6 and 28.8 for his record swim.
The men's relay was a scratch combination that just scraped into the final in the final place in the morning swim despite breaking the New Zealand record by nearly four seconds in 3:31.53.

They produced a stunning final led off with a New Zealand record in the backstroke to rookie teenager Daniel Bell in 51.84, a superb 57.91 from breaststroker Glenn Snyders, a 50.61s butterfly leg by Corney Swanepoel and a stunning 46.70 effort from freestyler Cameron Gibson. The kiwis clocked 3:27.15 in a brilliant swim, nearly eight seconds inside the old national mark.

They were dragged along by a world record to the Russians who edged out USA for the gold with the New Zealanders grabbing the bronze ahead of the heavily favoured Australian and Great Britain combinations in the final event of the championship. Earlier Bell finished 15th fastest in the heats of the 200m backstroke, Andrew McMillan 16th in the 200m butterfly with Melissa Ingram and Helen Norfolk 10th and 11th fastest respectively in the 200m freestyle.

Day 5 New Zealand results:
Heats:
200m backstroke: Daniel Bell 1:58.01, 15th.
200m butterfly: Moss Burmester 1:54.46, 6th; Andrew McMillan 1:56.23, 16th.
200m freestyle: Melissa Ingram 1:57.48, 10th; Helen Norfolk 1:57.20, 11th.
Men's 4x100m medley relay: NZL 3:31.53, 8.
Finals:
200m butterfly: Burmester 1:51.05, 1 (Championship and NZ record); Nikolay Skovrtsov (RUS) 1:51.83, 2; Pawel Korzeniowski (POL) 1:52.25, 3.
4x100m medley relay: Russia 3:24.29, 1 (world record); USA 3:24.38, 2; New Zealand (Daniel Bell, Glenn Snyders, Corney Swanepoel, Cameron Gibson) 3:27.15, 3 (NZ record).