Monday, June 25, 2007

Morph Blog � Blog Archive � Snow on the way?

Morph Blog - Blog Archive Snow on the way? It has been bitterly cold for the last few days, so the conditions are defiantly right to snow. The MetService is also predicting that it might possibly snow for the next 3 days.
We left Christchurch on June 9 -- just in time for the arrival of their winter. Meanwhile, we're about to get into some hot summer days.

In other New Zealand swimming news, see the comments for updates on the NZ swimmers who have come to California for some big-time swim meets.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

6th June 2007



Young swimmers pick up swag of medals in US meet



The Swimming New Zealand development squad collected a bagful of medals at the Nova Age Group Invitational which finished at Irvine, California today.

The eight-strong squad picked up 40 medals including 17 wins in a highly successful four-day meet for the New Zealand squad under national junior coach Clive Power.

Leading the way were North Shore Penny Marshall and Southland’s Natalie Wiegersma who won three titles each, with Kane Radford (Rotorua) and Kurt Bassett (Laser Mt Eden) winning two each. The other wins went to Jessie Blundell (North Shore) and Annabelle Carey (Aquagym, Christchurch) while relay teams picked up five victories.

Radford and Bassett also broke national records. The young Rotorua swimmer set a New Zealand age group record in the 1500m freestyle with a time of 15:38.39, going under his own mark for 16 year olds by over eight seconds.

Earlier Bassett, 17, established a new age group record of 57.36s for the 100m backstroke, nearly half a second inside his own previous record.

Power said the young squad took a big step forward for middle distance swimming over the 400m freestyle with Marshall and Wiegersma going close to the 4min 20sec barrier while Radford was only two seconds off the four minute mark.

Power was impressed with the performances over 400m medley where Wiegersma took six seconds off her personal best while Wellington’s Steven Kent, young brother of Dean, took four seconds off his best to clock 4min 40sec.

Not to be outdone, Wiegersma’s older sister Joyce took a significant nine seconds off her best in finishing second in the final of the 1500m freestyle in 17:18.42.

The squad will complete their US tour at the highly ranked Santa Clara International Meet starting on Thursday.

They will be joined by members of the New Zealand elite squad under coach Thomas Ansorg who start a three-meet programme at Santa Clara, followed by the Santa Barbara meet and finishing with the famous Janet Evans Invitational in Los Angeles.

The squad includes Helen Norfolk, Liz Coster, Melissa Ingram, Corney Swanepoel, Glenn Snyders with Carey remaining on to join the group.


Media results, NZ Development Squad, Nova Age Group Invitational, Irvine, California:
200m freestyle: Natalie Wiegersma (Southland) 2:05.83, 2; Penny Marshall (North Shore) 2:03.61, 1; Kane Radford (Rotorua) 1:55.61, 2.
200m backstroke: Marshall 2:20.32, 2; Jessie Blundell (North Shore) 2:20.08, 1; Kurt Bassett (Laser Mt Eden) 2:03.91, 1.
200m medley: Annabelle Carey (Aquagym, Chch) 2:28.60, 3; Bassett 2:09.67, 2.
800m freestyle: Joyce Wiegersma (Southland) 9:04.30, 3; N Wiegersma 9:02.20, 2; Radford 8:17.23, 1.
200m breaststroke: Carey 2:43.34, 3; N Wiegersma 2:38.09, 1.
100m butterfly: John Gatfield (Watties Swim City) 59.84, 3.
400m freestyle: Marshall 4:20.38, 1; N Wiegersma 4:21.87, 2; Radford 4:00.43, 2; Bassett 4:03.70, 3.
400m medley: N Wiegersma 4:50.95, 1; Radford 4:43.26, 2.
100m freestyle: Marshall 59.18, 1.
100m backstroke: Marshall 1:05.90, 2; N Wiegersma 1:05.56, 1; Blundell 1:06.57, 3; Bassett 57.36, 1 (NZ Record); Gatfield 59.08, 2.
50m butterfly: Blundell 27.73, 3; Marshall 27.71, 2; Bassett 25.03, 3.
100m breaststroke: Carey 1:12.05, 1.
1500m freestyle: J Wiegersma 17:18.42, 2; Radford 15:38.39, 1 (NZ Record).