Samantha Lucie-Smith eyes up world championships

Freestyle specialist Samantha Lucie-Smith hopes a four-and-a-half-month training stint in the Gold Coast can act as the perfect preparation for her New Zealand Open Championship assault in Auckland this week.

The New Zealand representative at the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Commonwealth Games took a gamble to head across the Tasman in December and although she has returned home and will now be based out of North Shore Swimming Club in Auckland, Lucie-Smith found the spell in Australia provided a much needed change of scene.

“I enjoyed the experience and learnt heaps about myself,” she explains. “The swimming environment seems a lot more relaxed than in New Zealand but still serious in terms of performance. The coaches loved their job and were so energetic that it really rubbed off onto the swimmers.

“I really enjoyed the change of scenery and training outdoors as it made my attitude towards swimming a lot happier and energetic, which is what I really needed. Training in a dark and gloomy indoor pool can make it quite depressing, so it's always good to have a change.”

Lucie-Smith performed consistently at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games last year earning top 16 places in the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle as well as fourth place finishes in both the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays for New Zealand.

Yet the 22-year-old Wellingtonian hopes to kick on this year beginning at the Nationals this week where she hopes to secure the World Championship qualification standards in her main two events - the 100m and 200m freestyle.

“I've qualified in previous years under a B qualification standard, so my ultimate goal is to get the A qualifying time (which stands at 55.05 for the 100m, 1:58.93 for the 200m and 4:12.47 for the 400m freestyle),” explains Lucie-Smith, of her ambitions for the event, which will take place in Kazan in July-August.

“My PB is faster than the qualifying time for the 200m and 400m free but I would need do quite a big PB in the 100 free.

“So the (qualification) times are reasonable and they are going to be much faster for Rio. My preparation I believe has been good. Much better than trials last year I think. But it's still so hard to tell how I'm going to race as I've experienced such a huge change in training since moving to Australia in December, but I'm excited to see how I go.”

Samantha Lucie-Smith – Fact Box

Luice-Smith made her New Zealand debut in 2008 at the Trans-Tasman Tri Series.