Southland Swimmer Stars Against Australias Best

Southland’s Natalie Wiegersma set the seal on an excellent weekend for New Zealand swimmers at the New South Wales Championships in Sydney.

Wiegersma, 20, went under the Commonwealth Games qualifying time for the second time at the meet, after finishing second in the final of the women’s 200m individual medley at the Sydney Aquatic Centre last night.

The Waverly club swimmer clocked 2:12.73 in finishing second, sandwiched between world short course medley world record-holder Emily Seebohm and ahead of Beijing Olympic gold medallist Stephanie Rice.

Her time was nearly two seconds under the time she will need to beat at April’s Commonwealth Games Trials to secure a spot on the team for New Delhi.

The effort earned the Southland star the New Zealand record, taking 77/100ths of a second off the previous mark set by Helen Norfolk at the Beijing Olympics.

Wiegersma earlier also bettered the Commonwealth Games qualifying time in the 400m individual medley.

“It was a superb weekend for Natalie and her coach Jeremy Duncan, She has made huge strides and this is excellent rewards for some very hard work,” said Swimming New Zealand’s Jan Cameron.

“Natalie is a young swimmer who has been moving up the world rankings consistently and the challenge will now be to kick on from here and improve further at the Trials. This is an excellent confidence boost for her.”

North Shore backstroker Emily Thomas was the other kiwi medallist on the final night, finishing runner-up, also to Seebohm, in the final of the 50m backstroke in a slick 28.53.

New Zealand swimmers qualified for 13 finals to complete a hard three days of competition for the team.

“The exercise was very worthwhile. Our swimmers were all still in heavy training load and the Australians were further advanced in their programmes with their Commonwealth Games Trials in a month,” Cameron said.

“It was a tremendous opportunity for them to test themselves under fatigue and get to hone their racing skills under fatigue. It was invaluable.”

The squad will return to training tomorrow with the next competitive outing at the Auckland Open Championships next month.

New Zealand results, day 3 finals:
200m individual medley: Emily Seebohm (AUS) 2:11.80, 1; Natalie Wiegersma (NZL) 2:12.73, 2 (NZ Record); Stephanie Rice (AUS) 2:13.22, 3. Also: Grace Francis (NZL) 2:19.78, 9.
50m backstroke: Seebohm 28.53, 1; Emily Thomas (NZL) 28.76, 2; Belinda Hocking (AUS) 28.82, 3. Also: Jessie Blundell (NZL) 30.30, 8; Melissa Ingram (NZL) 30.39, 9.
Other New Zealand performances:
100m butterfly: Corney Swanepoel 54.51, 7; Moss Burmester 54.70, 9.
200m freestyle: Penny Marshall 2:01.08, 6; Amaka Gessler 2:02.16, 9.
400m individual medley: Brett Newall 4:34.72, 6.
100m backstroke: Daniel Bell 56.53, 4; Gareth Kean 56.97, 5; John Gatfield 58.52, 8.