Bryn Murphy (Waves) showed he is on target to make the London Olympics in the ocean swim by winning the gold medal in the inaugural New Zealand 5km pool championships at the weekend.
The event was held at three venues - in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin - for the first time, and results were collated via email.
Murphy (24) won the open men's event in 56min 33.24sec to take the gold medal ahead of Kane Radford (Rotorua) in 56min 44.39sec.
Fellow Waves swimmer Troy Balvert was third in 56min 57.88sec.
Murphy retired from pool swimming two years ago because he thought the tough qualifying standard would make it impossible for him to get to the Olympics in 2012.
But he has had a change of heart with ocean swimming.
The Beijing Olympics featured a 10km ocean swim and because it was so popular a 5km ocean swim is expected to be added for London.
It was a successful championship for Waves swimmers, with Stefannie Gillespie winning the girls aged 13 to 15 5km race in 1hr 2min 25.14sec ahead of Grace Somerville (Ashburton), who clocked 1hr 04min 05.30sec.
Phoebe O'Leary (Waves) won the women's aged 16 and 17 event in 1hr 04min 31.39sec.
Bianca Bradley (Taupo) was second in 1hr 04min 52.12sec.
Jordan Fogarty (Waves) was fourth in 1hr 04min 57.90sec.
As well as winning their age groups, Gillespie was the fastest woman overall and O'Leary was the third-fastest.
Jeremy Tasker (Oamaru) was third in the men's aged 16 and 17 race in 1hr 01min 43.85sec.
