Wellington swimmer Lewis Clareburt has ended the New Zealand Swimming Championships on a high, smashing a third new national record, and swimming a second Olympic qualifying time.
After earlier in the week breaking the men’s 400-metre individual medley mark (which he had already qualified for the Tokyo Games in), and also remarkably beating the country’s best 100m freestyle time during the 4x100m freestyle relay, the 21-year-old then rounded out his campaign at Auckland’s National Aquatic Centre by clocking 1:57.89 in the 200m individual medley on Saturday night.
That took 1.35 seconds off the previous record, set by Bradlee Ashby at the 2017 world championships in Budapest, with Clareburt finishing well ahead of 19-year-old Luan Grobbelaar (2:01.28) and 17-year-old Sam Brown (2:04.16), who finished second and third, respectively, both with personal best times.
Clareburt, who claimed bronze medals in the 400m IM at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2019 world champs, will carry New Zealand’s hopes in the pool at Tokyo.
He also claimed victory on Saturday in the men’s 100m freestyle, in a time of 49.04, just shy of his record-breaking mark of 48.96 set in the relay earlier in the meet.
Meanwhile, Pukekohe’s Andrew Jeffcoat also set a New Zealand Open record in the men’s 50m backstroke during the morning heats, clocking 25.06 – knocking 0.18 seconds off Daneil Bell’s 12-year-old record. Jeffcoat was then just 0.02 seconds off breaking the record again in his win in the final.
There were high hopes for Auckland’s Helena Gasson in the women’s 200m IM after she clocked 2:12.68 in the morning’s heats – just 0.12s off Olympic qualification. However, she went slightly slower in her win in the final (2:13.38)
Hamilton’s Nikita Howarth posted her fastest time in the women’s 100m breaststroke since the 2016 Paralympics, clocking 1:33.26 to move to the top this year’s world rankings (SB7) and breaking a new NZ SB7 record.
While she couldn’t quite back that up in the evening, the time was Howarth’s third qualification standard for Tokyo.
Sophie Pascoe (SB9) also clocked a Paralympic qualification time in the 100m breaststroke, going 1.25.19 in the heats, while she set another Tokyo time in winning the 100m freestyle in 1:03.86, bringing her total qualifying events to six.
