Kean, Bell scores Gold Medals in Record night in Pan Pacs

Wellington’s Gareth Kean and West Auckland’s Daniel Bell celebrated a double night of victory for New Zealand swimmers at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Guam yesterday.

Kean (Capital) set a national open record and a meet record in swimming the 200m backstroke, while Bell scored his second gold of the championships with victory in the 100m butterfly, also in a meet record.

This follows a gold medal and a bronze medal for Bell on the opening two days of the meet.

Kean, 17, coached by Gary Hurring, was all class in his final tonight. He clocked a superb 1:59.52 to win the final over Japan’s Tamahiro Yamazaki which broke the national open record established last year by North Shore’s Kurt Bassett at the World Youth championships of 1:59.57.

Earlier Bell set a new meet record in topping qualifiers for the 100m butterfly and then went faster in 52.37s to win the final. This was 23/100ths of a second inside the national age group record for 18 years, going under the previous mark held by Beijing Olympian Corney Swanepoel.

It was a doubly good night for Wellington with another Capital swimmer, Samantha Lee finishing eighth in the A final of the 200m backstroke, while the 400m freestyle relay teams both finished in fifth place.

New Zealand Results, day 3A finals:
100m butterfly: Samantha Lee 1:02.21, 8.
100m butterfly: Daniel Bell 52.37, 1 (Meet Record, NZ Age Record); Lachlan Staples (Australia) 53.21, 2; Tim Phillips (USA) 53.77, 3.
200m backstroke: Gareth Kean 1:59.52, 1 (NZ Record, meet record); Takahiro Yamazaki 2:00.56, 2; Matthew Swanston (Canada) 2:01.24, 3.

B finals:
400m freestyle: Chloe Francis 4:21.62, 4; Samantha Lucie-Smith 4:26.68, 6.#400m freestyle: Kane Radford 3:59.47, 4; Cameron Burrows 3:59.70, 5; Dylan Dunlop-Barrett 4:02.96, 3.
100m butterfly: Elizabeth Brown 1:02.86, 1
200m backstroke: Samantha Lucie-Smith 2:25.67, 7.