2024 NEW ZEALAND SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, April 9th – Saturday, April 13th
- Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre
- LCM (50m)
- Olympic Selection Criteria
- Meet Central
- Entries/Live Results
- Livestream
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap
History was made on the final day of action at the 2024 New Zealand Swimming Championships.
Racing in the heats of the men’s 50m freestyle, 22-year-old Taiko Torepe-Ormsby became the first-ever man from New Zealand to dip under the 22-second barrier.
Torepe-Ormsby stopped the clock in a time of 21.86 to claim the top seed, with Michael Pickett earning the 2nd seed in 22.19 and newly-minted 100m free Olympic qualifier Cameron Gray posting 22.34 for 3rd.
Torepe-Ormsby’s outing registered a huge new lifetime best, wiping out his previous career-quickest result of 22.21 put up at the 2023 Central Zone North Championships in the U.S.
Although the University of Wisconsin athlete ultimately hit a slower 22.08 in the final, his prelims outing successfully cleared the World Aquatics Olympic Qualification Time of 21.96 needed for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
After his impressive performance, Torepe-Ormsby stated, “I’m lost for words, to be honest, I’ve dreamed about this moment for my whole life.
“I’ve been going fast the last couple of days, doing the sets my coach told me and I just can’t believe I got that Olympic time.” (1News)
Torepe-Ormsby finished 10th in the 50y free at this year’s NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships, setting a new University of Wisconsin program record of 18.81. At the Big Ten Championships in February, he took the 50y free in 18.76 and earned runner-up status in the 100y free in 42.10.
Yuri cannot recruit US men swimmers. Let alone swimmers from Wisconsin.
That was Hite’s mess he inherited with the lack of in state athletes, if you were around the Wisconsin LSC during Hite’s last two years you’d know what went down and it wasn’t pretty. Yuri has several committed for 24 and 25 but some of these club coaches have sent their swimmers elsewhere for a reason.
Woo!
Swim NZ gonna have to review their “Swimming in the US system is no good for NZ kids” narrative. Esp with Transom and Follows qualifying.
Neither have trained in US for a while. Transom is in Australia and Follows in NZ.
Nice kid! 👏👏👏👏👏
U- Rah-rah!
It’s been really awesome to see the improvement curve on this guy over the last year. Congrats!
His last name is almost as good as Stubblety-Cook
On Wisconsin!