2020 NEW ZEALAND SC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, October 6th – Saturday, October 10th
- Waterworld Te Rapa, New Zealand
- SCM (25m)
- Psych Sheets
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Results
While several national records have been hitting the gutter at the North Short Invitational running concurrently, notable swims are also taking place at these New Zealand Short Course Championships in Hamilton. You can read more about the need for more than one meet in our SwimSwam Preview.
On the menu today was the men’s and women’s 400m free, which meant freestyle aces Zac Reid and Erika Fairweather were in the water. 20-year-old Reid already nailed an 800m free national record earlier in the meet and nearly accomplished the same feat in this 4free, hitting a lifetime best of 3:40.95.
Reid’s time here beat the next closest competitor, 400m IM World Championships bronze medalist Lewis Clareburt, by over 4 seconds, but also fell just .49 outside of the longstanding New Zealand national record of 3:40.46 Danyon Loader put on the books way back in 1992.
Splits for Reid’s performance can be seen below. Entering this meet, Reid’s PB rested at the 3:43.60 logged at this same meet last year. As such, the man hacked well over 2 seconds off of his previous career-fastest in this event.
As for the women’s 400m free, Fairweather topped the podium in a time of 4:06.00. The 16-year-old Neptune swimmer owns the New Zealand Age Record in this event with ha 4:04.33 she put up just this past August.
17-year-old Taiko Torepe-Ormsby matched the NZL Age Record in the men’s 50m free, posting a winning effort of 22.43. For the women’s race, it was 23-year-old Emma Godwin who got it done for gold in 24.79.
Laura Littlejohn of St. Paul’s was another age record-breaker, hitting a PB of 1:01.04 in the women’s 100m IM. That overtook the previous age record for 16-year-olds of 1:01.34 Brearna Crawford threw down last year.
Finally, Virginia Tech-bound Luan Grobbelaar snagged the 100m IM victory in a time of 55.57. That’s a personal best as a Kiwi. He formally competed as a South African until 2019.
Also in New Zealand , Auckland swimmers in New Zealand are racing at a meet called North Shore Invitational due to Auckland Swimming Teams not being able to compete in Hamilton at New Zealand Short Course Championships due to Covid-19 restrictions. Several Open and Age Group Records have been broken with some world class swims as well.
Well done to all the NZ swimmers in Hamilton! Keep up the great work.
On it – https://swimswam.com/15-year-old-melissa-cowen-hits-nzl-200breast-national-record/
Might want to mention that Danyon Loader is the 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 200m and 400m freestyle.