Bell gets award, NZ swimmers win five golds

New Zealand swimmer Daniel Bell is charged for a top performance at next month’s Beijing Olympics after he was voted male swimmer of the FINA World Youth Championships in Mexico today.

The 18 year old from Waitakere City finished the Championship with three gold medals in an outstanding performance at Monterrey.

He helped New Zealand to a haul of five gold medals in the second biennial World Youth Champs, claiming the best team award for most golds. They finished 11th overall from the 39 competing nations.

The highlight in the final session was a gold medal to Auckland’s Kurt Bassett who set a New Zealand Open record in winning the 200m backstroke.

The other gold medal went to Bassett’s Laser Mt Eden clubmate Orinoco Faamausili-Banse.

Bell and Faamausili-Banse return to New Zealand for final preparations for the Beijing Olympics where they will compete in the medley and freestyle relays respectively.

Bassett qualified top in the morning heats of the 200m backstroke in a solid 2:00.19 although Bell was 12th fastest and missed out on the final.

The 18 year old, who is on a swimming scholarship in the USA, was all class in the final, with a well constructed performance to win in 1:59.67, nearly a second clear of his nearest rival.

It took a quarter of a second off his own national open record set at the Olympic Trials when he was an agonizing 1/100th of a second off the FINA A qualifying time. He has since gone under the time in the US and was well under the mark in winning the gold medal.

Swimming New Zealand Junior Programme Manager Clive Power said he was delighted with the performances.

“These championships were much stronger than the first one, with more than 600 swimmers here and all the major swimming nations now identifying this as the major part of their youth programme,” Mr Power said.

“It was hard to work out what level the championships would be because we did not know who was coming. But it was strong and a number of nations had their young Olympic swimmers racing.”

Two things really impressed Power with the New Zealand performances, which exceeded his expectations.

“In the past we may come away with one swimmer who might win but that does not tell you much about your programme. But we had three swimmers to win titles. In fact we won every final that we qualified for.

“All of the swimmers performed well in the heats and got up and swam faster in the final. That has not always been a trait of New Zealand swimmers.”

Power classed Bell, especially, Bassett and Faamausili-Banse as special athletes and he is buoyant about their futures.

Earlier Shaun Burnett (North Shore), Ellen Quirke (Capital) Shane Patience (Waves, Dunedin) and Kane Radford (Rotorua) produced personal best performances in the heats.

Patience enjoyed a substantial personal best in the 1500m freestyle by seven seconds to be ranked eighth fastest in the timed finals.

New Zealand results, day 6:

Final: men’s 200m backstroke: Kurt Bassett (NZL) 1:59.67, 1 (Championship Record, NZ Open Record); Matthew Swanston (CAN) 2:00.53, 2; Radoslow Kowecki (POL) 2:00.72, 3.
200m men’s medley relay: Great Britain 3:41.69, 1; Japan 3:42.61, 2; USA 3:42.79, 3. New Zealand (Kurt Bassett, John Gatfield, Daniel Bell, Orinoco Faamausili-Banse) 3:47.53, 8.

Heats:
200m backstroke: Bassett 2:00.19, 1; Daniel Bell 2:03.88, 12.
200m butterfly: Shaun Burnett 2:03.52, 13.
200m freestyle: Ellen Quirke 2:07.68, 28.
1500m freestyle: Shane Patience 15:38.20, 8; Kane Radford 15:45.35, 14.