State NZ Open Swimming Championships - Day 1 Heats

New Zealand’s star pair of Lauren Boyle and Glenn Snyders went under the qualifying time for the world championships on the opening day of the State national championships in Auckland this morning.

Boyle (North Shore) clocked an outstanding 4:05.67 to top qualifiers in heats of the 400m freestyle at the West Wave Aquatic Centre in Henderson.

Her time was more than four seconds inside the FINA A time which is the qualifying mark for July’s FINA World Championships in Barcelona. Her heat time was the fastest 400m freestyle recorded in New Zealand, under the national record she set in last year’s championships to qualify for the Olympics. The 25 year lowered her national record to 4:03.63 in London.

Boyle’s dominance was such that she was eight seconds faster than the next qualifiers and fellow London Olympians Tash Hind and Samantha Lucie-Smith, both from the Capital club.

Snyders, now based in southern California, impressed to clock 1:00.14 in his heat of the men’s 100m breaststroke which was 0.7s inside the qualifying mark for world championships.

The 24 year old looked comfortable, going through the turn in 28.07s and eased home under the qualifying time.

Tonight he will attempt to become the first breaststroker to go under the minute barrier in New Zealand, having clocked 59.78s at the London Olympics.

In other heat swims, Samantha Lee (Capital) topped qualifiers ahead of national record holder Sophia Batchelor (Aquagym) in the 100m butterfly, Matamata’s Matthew Stanley was fastest in the 400m freestyle, Kate Godfrey (Neptune) was fastest in the women’s 200m individual medley in 2:19.56 just ahead of Capital’s Emily McGill while Nielsen Varoy (Roskill) was best in the 50m butterfly ahead of Paul Benson (Heretaunga).

The first night of finals starts at 6.30pm tonight.

IAN HEPENSTALL  Media Manager Swimming NZ High Performance Sports Media NZ Ltd Tel 09 2327822 Mob 0275 613181 E: ian@sportsmedianz.com Skype: kiwiheps