NSW Swimming Championships - Day 3 Heats

Wellington backstroker Gareth Kean booked another showdown against Australian’s best on the final night of the New South Wales Swimming Championships in Sydney.

The 20 year old was second fastest in heats of the 100m backstroke, edged by 22/100ths of a second by Beijing Olympic medallist Hayden Stoeckel in heats this morning at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

The Swimming New Zealand AquaBlacks and High Performance Squad along with the newly formed Wellington Regional HPC are among 66 kiwi swimmers from 17 clubs competing across the Tasman in the three-day meet that has attracted more than 1300 competitors.

Kean, coached by Gary Hurring at the Wellington Regional High Performance Centre, clocked 54.91 in the heats, only half a second outside the qualifying time for the London Olympics.

North Shore’s Kurt Bassett is also through to the finals tonight in the same event.

His fellow Swimming New Zealand High Performance Centre clubmate Tash Hind impressed to top qualifiers for the 200m freestyle, which is shaping as a close battle tonight with the top five swimmers separated by 0.8s.

Southland’s Natalie Wiegersma was second fastest in her heat of the 200m individual medley in a solid 2:15.86 behind Pac Pacific Champs double gold medallist Emily Seebohm.

Also racing tonight is open water specialist Kane Radford in the fast heat of the 1500m freestyle timed final.

Qualifiers were:

200m breaststroke: Glenn Snyders (HPC North Shore) 2:21.00, 8^th.

200m freestyle: Tash Hind (HPC Capital) 2:00.13, 1^st; Samantha Lucie-Smith (WRHPC Capital) 2:00.89, 5^th; Lauren Boyle (HPC North Shore)2:01.16, 8^th.

50m freestyle: Nielsen Varoy (Roskill Magic) 22.89, 3^rd.

200m individual medley: Natalie Wiegersma (Waverley) 2:15.86, 2^nd.

100m Backstroke: Gareth Kean (WRHPC Capital) 54.91, 2^nd; Kurt Bassett (HPC North Shore) 56.48, 10^th.