Otago ends champs in style

Erika Fairweather
Erika Fairweather
Otago swimmers finished the national championships with a bang in Auckland over the weekend.

The Neptune club’s 4x200m freestyle relay team had a very convincing victory in the final of the event.

The quartet blitzed the field to finish more than 20sec ahead of the North Shore team.

The team of Erika Fairweather, Caitlin Deans, Ruby Heath and Sophie Shallard swam 8min 19.25sec.

Fairweather led out well and the rest of the relay team just lengthened the lead.

Fairweather had earlier completed the freestyle treble with victory in the 100m freestyle in 55.49sec to win the senior title. It was also a 17 years national record.

She had earlier won the 200m and 400m freestyle titles and confirmed her qualification for the Olympics in the 400m freestyle.

She will have another chance at an Olympic qualification regatta in Hamilton next month.

To come away with four gold medals shows her skills in the pool and her real potential.

Deans won two gold medals over the weekend to go with a silver in the 1500m.

In the men’s 200m individual medley, Luan Grobbelar took nearly 6sec off his personal best to finish second in 2min 1.28sec.

Wellington’s Lewis Clareburt set an Olympic qualification time and a New Zealand open record in the event, recording 1min 57.89sec to beat he old record by 1.35sec.

Deans won the 800m women’s race in 8min 46.60 sec while Heath was third in 9min 3.80sec.

Jacob Blomfield was third in the 1500m in 16min 20.14sec.

Clareburt won the Harold Pettit Trophy, awarded for the the most outstanding performance at the championships, for his swim in the men’s 400m individual medley in which he set a national record and qualified for the Olympics.

 

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