Godfrey (17), a pupil at Otago Girls High School, convincingly won the women's 100m backstroke at the Otago championships and could be the successor to Jean Stewart who won a bronze medal at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki in the same event.
Godfrey won the title in a time of 1min 05.73sec to break the record she set at the Queensland state championships in Brisbane last month by 0.06sec.
It was a significant win because she won by 6sec from Jordyn Fogarty (Waves) with Lil Clearwater (Neptune) third in 1min 12.01sec.
She swam 31 seconds for the first 50m and came home in 34sec.
She had a lot in reserve and could have gone faster had the other swimmers been closer.
Godfrey, a member of coach Gennadiy Labara's Osca squad, beat New Zealander Stacey O'Regan's 1996 record at the Brisbane event.
She has the dedication to training and the talent to follow in the footsteps of Olympians Anna Wilson and Liz van Welie who have been Otago's best female swimmers in the last 20 years.
Nick Tyrrell (Neptune), another member of the Osca squad, always had the edge over clubmate Robert Murray and won the men's 100m backstroke in 1min 03.05sec. Murray was timed at 1min 05.30sec. Tyrrell was timed at 30.5sec for the first lap and came home in 32.5sec.
Tyrrell (19), an English and music student at the University of Otago, started swimming with Duncan Laing and won his only national championship medal at the great coach's final national championships. He finished third in the short course 200m individual medley.
The only other Otago record of the night went to Aleisha Ruske (Neptune) in the girls aged 12 and 13 50m butterfly in 30.30sec. Mere Hancock (Cromwell) was second in 33.51sec.
Ruske (13), a pupil at St Hilda's Collegiate, is coached by Punch McPhee. The old record of 31.03sec was swum by Hannah Shanks (Taieri) in 1995.
Braden Doyle (Waves) took the lead in the third lap and held on to win the open men's 200m freestyle (1min 58.60sec) in a close finish from Neptune swimmers Matthew Glassford (1min 59.50sec) and Tyrrell (1min 59.52sec).
Waves swimmers dominated the 200m freestyle events with Sarah Cutler winning the women's aged 14 and 15 race in 2min 12.07sec, Carina Doyle the senior women's in 2min 09.58sec and Thomas Wardhaugh the men's aged 14 and 15 title in 2min 06.89sec. Cutler also won the 50m butterfly in 32.64sec.
