New Zealand swimmers upset big guns in Junior Pan Pacs
New Zealand swimmers sealed an outstanding week with a superb gold medal on the last night of finals in the pool at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Guam tonight.
The teenage quartet of Gareth Kean, Starn Simpson, Daniel Bell and Cameron Burrows scored a brilliant gold medal in the men’s 400m medley relay, upsetting favourites Australia and USA.
Earlier West Auckland’s Bell, 18, earned a bronze in the final of the 50m freestyle. This is added to his two gold medals in the 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly, and bronze in the 100m freestyle.
The championships conclude tomorrow with Rotorua’s Kane Radford competing in the 10km open water swim.
New Zealand has won six medals at the championships with four to Bell and a further gold to Wellington’s Kean on Saturday.
They qualified for another four A finals tonight with Whangaparaoa’s Mitchell Donaldson finishing fifth in the 200m individual medley in 2:04.59. This took nearly five seconds off the 16 years national age group record.
Christchurch’s Amaka Gessler was eighth in the final of the 50m freestyle in 26.81, while North Shore Chloe Francis was eighth in the final of the 200m breaststroke in 2:37.22.
Taranaki’s Dylan Dunlop-Barrett and Dunedin’s Shane Patience were seventh and eighth respectively in the men’s 800m freestyle.
Bell clocked 23.00s to finish third in the 50m freestyle, only 1/10th of a second from the winner Kento Ito from Japan, with Australia’s Tommaso D’Orsogna second in 22.96. Bell’s time swiped more than half a second off the 18 years New Zealand age group record.
The pool competition concluded with a magnificent effort from men’s medley relay team in a ding dong battle with swimming superpowers Australia and USA.
Kean gave them the early advantage in the backstroke and they remained ahead from USA after the breaststroke from Simpson. Bell produced an outstanding 51.66s butterfly leg with Burrows holding off a brilliant charge from Australia’s D’Orsogna who overtook the Americans and came within 6/100ths of a second of grabbing victory.
Their winning time of 3:42.07 established a new meet record.
Both the men and the women finished fifth overall on the points table behind Australia, USA, Japan and Canada.
New Zealand results:
A finals:
Men’s 400m medley relay: New Zealand (G Kean, S Simpson, D Bell, C Burrows) 3:42.07, 1; Australia 3:42.16, 2; USA 3:43.26, 3.
50m freestyle: Kento Ito (JPN) 22.90, 1; Tommaso D’Orsogna (AUS) 22.96, 2; Daniel Bell (NZL) 23.00, 3 (NZ Age record).
200m individual medley: Mitchell Donaldson 2:04.59, 5.
50m freestyle: Amaka Gessler 26.41, 8.
200m breaststroke: Chloe Francis 2:37.22, 8.
800m freestyle: Dylan Dunlop-Barrett 8:16.64, 7; Shane Patience 8:17.20, 8.
Women’s medley relay: NZL 4:18.00, 5.
B finals:
200m individual medley: Ellen Quirke 2:19.92, 4; Samantha Lucie-Smith 2:25.10, 7; Elizabeth Brown 2:27.46, 8.
50m freestyle: Samantha Lee 27.82, 6.
1500m freestyle: Phoebe Williams 17:21.34, 3.