Mitchell Donaldson came of age as a swimmer last night, adding the spark for a relay to better the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games on the penultimate night of finals at the New Zealand open championships in Auckland.
The 21-year-old Donaldson (North Shore) set a personal best of 1min 48.80sec to win the men's 200m freestyle at the West Wave Aquatic Centre.
With a blanket covering the next three swimmers comprising in-form Dylan Dunlop-Barrett (Coast), Matthew Stanley (Matamata) and Steven Kent (Coast) all in the low 1min 49sec, the fastest four combined for 7min 14.12sec to be more than 1sec inside the qualifying time for Glasgow.
It was also the second-fastest time in the world this year.
Earlier, Howick Pakuranga swimmer Corey Main (19) surprised himself with his personal best time of 54.47sec in the morning heats of the 100m backstroke that bettered the Commonwealth Games standard by 0.16sec.
It brings the total performances under qualifying for Glasgow to six individuals - four able-bodied swimmers and two para-swimmers - and both the women's and men's 4x200m freestyle relay with one day remaining.
Donaldson, until now a noted medley swimmer who competed in last year's world championship, has made huge gains in freestyle since moving to Sydney late last year to return to his old coach, Scott Talbot.
The Whangaparaoa swimmer said the move had been fundamental to his huge gains.
''I have done a lot of work on the 200m freestyle in the last few months. All season I have been working on the middle 100. The main thing was not to get too excited and go out too fast.
''You can't go into any race racing for second or third, so I went in gunning for gold and it worked out. And it's great the boys all came through for the relay to qualify.''
Main, in his first year of scholarship at the University of Florida, won the 100m backstroke final, although slightly outside his heat time with a 54.81sec effort.
Kurt Crosland (29), from the Neptune club in Dunedin, again pushed hard to clock a personal best 54.88sec which was just outside his dream of qualifying for Glasgow.
The remarkable Sophie Pascoe added yet another world record to her long list when she clocked 31.62s in the 50m backstroke.
The Cantabrian, who has six Paralympic gold medals and five IPC World titles to her credit, was fractionally inside her own previous world record.
Te Awamutu's Nikita Howarth (15) became the second para-swimmer to better the qualifying standard in the 100m freestyle in the S8 category to go under the required time for Glasgow.
United States-based North Shore swimmer Glenn Snyders completed his clean sweep of all breaststroke events when he won the men's 50m final in 27.38sec.
It followed qualifying performances in winning the 100m and 200m breaststroke titles earlier in the meet.
