Bryn Murphy (Waves) is expected to win the men's open 1500m title when he returns to pool racing at Moana Pool tonight.
The distance events will be held on the first night of the Otago championships and Murphy is favourite to regain his Otago 800m and 1500m freestyle titles.
The 800m is swum in conjunction with the 1500m and the swimmer in the lead at that stage takes the title.
Murphy retired from pool swimming in September 2008 because he thought the tough qualifying standard would make it impossible for him to get to the Olympics in 2012.
His win in the opening two races of the New Zealand ocean swim series at Auckland and Russell last month have renewed his enthusiasm for the sport.
The open class leader, his next race is the 2.8km Capital Classic, in Wellington, on Saturday.
Murphy knows he needs pool speed to excel at the top level in ocean swims and will be using tonight's 800m-1500m combined race as a warm-up for the classic.
His main opposition will come from Neptune swimmers Matthew Glassford and Nick Tyrell.
Also in contention are Waves swimmers Rhys Pryde-Wall and Rhys Applegarth.
Murphy's remaining races in the New Zealand open swim series are: Corsair Bay Classic, Lyttelton, February 27; Sand to Surf, Mt Maunganui, March 27; King of the Bays, Auckland, April 17.
In the boys age 14 and 15 races, the main contenders will be Waves' Thomas Wardhaugh and Hamish McCulloch, Ben Gray (Neptune) and Jeremy Tasker (Oamaru).
In the boys aged 13 and under races the favourites are Michael Gray and Chris Dickie, of Waves, and Casey Strachan (Queenstown).
Phoebe Williams (Waves) will not be challenged in the women's 800m or 1500m.
She is expected to break 9 minutes for the 800m and to carry on and complete the 1500m in under 17 minutes.
Katie Kenneally (Neptune), the other contender, is swimming only the 800m.
The finals sessions at Moana Pool are: Today (from 6.30pm), tomorrow (from 5.45pm), Saturday (from 3.45pm) and Sunday (from 1.45pm).
