North Shore swimmer throws out Beijing Challenge

North Shore swimmer Hayley Palmer forced her way into the frame for next year’s Beijing Olympics with a record-breaking start to the Swimming New Zealand Spring Championships in Wellington tonight.

Palmer, 18, broke the New Zealand open record for the 100m individual medley as well as an age group record in winning the 100m freestyle on the second night of competition at the Wellington Aquatic Centre.

She was joined by Wellington breaststroker Kelly Bentley who broke her own national open short course record in winning the 200m breaststroke.

There were a further nine New Zealand age group records tonight to go with the five set on Sunday.

The championships have attracted the key age group swimmers hoping to push into Olympic reckoning next year along with some of the national elite squad, while the majority of the leading swimmers take a short break after recent international competition.

Palmer led the way tonight. The New Zealand-born swimmer has spent several years in the UK before returning to Auckland last year where she joined the crack North Shore club.

She broke the 18 years age group mark in the 100m individual medley in the morning heat before lowering it by more than a second in the evening final to 1:02.72. This broke Helen Norfolk’s national open record set in Auckland last month of 1:02.95.

Palmer also broke the mark of Commonwealth Games freestyler Lauren Boyle in the 18 years 100m freestyle clocking 55.46s.

Her strong performances will bring her into the frame to challenge for a place in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay which has already secured a spot in Beijing.

Bentley (Capital) showed she was back to her best with a superb swim to win the 200m breaststroke, clocking 2:28.23, taking 2/10ths of a second of her previous open record.

She did not have things her own way with world youth champion Natalie Wiegersma (Southland) pushing her hard to finish second only 4/10ths of a second behind, but well inside her 17 years age group record.

Wiegersma also broke her age mark in the 200m butterfly in 2:13.45.

Howick Pakuranga’s Corey Main has two national age records already in the 12 years and under 200m freestyle in 2:05.77 and 200m backstroke in 2:17.41 while Dunedin’s Phoebe Williams (Waves) clocked 8:52.42 to set a new mark in the 14 years 800m freestyle.

World championship representative Annabelle Carey broke her own 18 years record to clock 32.09 in the 50m breaststroke.

Other age group records fell to Liz Brown (Ashburton) in the 14 years 200m butterfly in 2:16.16, Emily Thomas (Comet) in the 17 years 100m backstroke in 1:01.54, Mitchell Donaldson (Coast) in the 14 years 400m individual medley clocking 4:30.48 while Orinoco Faamausili-Banse (Laser Mt Eden) set a new record in the 17 years 100m freestyle of 50.63.

The championships continue until Wednesday.