Silver for Grobbelaar in classy display

An Olympic qualifying time eluded Luan Grobbelaar last night.

The Neptune swimmer still put on a classy display to claim silver on day two of the national championships in Auckland.

Grobbelaar, who recently moved to Dunedin, swam 4min 18.90sec in the 400m individual medley.

It left him 3sec off the qualifying time for the Tokyo Games.

He was beaten by Capital’s Lewis Clareburt, who broke his own New Zealand record by swimming 4min 09.87sec to take gold.

Grobbelaar competed for South Africa at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, but became eligible to represent New Zealand in 2019.

Star freestyler Erika Fairweather finished just short of a medal as she opened her championships.

The 17-year-old finished fourth in the women’s 50m freestyle in 26.14sec.

It left the Neptune swimmer marginally outside the medals, Vanessa Ouwehand pipping her by 0.11sec.

There will probably be plenty of success to come later in the week for Fairweather.

The former junior world champion enters the meeting having already swum an Olympic qualifying time in the 400m freestyle.

She only just missed the qualifying time in the 200m as well, a target she will seek to chase today.

In other results, Ezekiel Pine (Neptune) finished sixth in the men’s 100m backstroke and Sophie Shallard (Neptune) was eighth in the women’s 400m IM.

Zenith’s Katie Short came seventh in the women’s 100m para-backstroke.

The championships end on Saturday.

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