Medal Haul Leaves Swimmers Buoyant About London Campaign

Swimming New Zealand head coach Mark Regan believes that his young team has made significant strides at the 18th Commonwealth Games that finished in Delhi tonight.

Swimming snared six medals, only one behind their record tally away from home at Victoria, Canada in 1994 when Danyon Loader accounted for four of them.

It matched the six medals won at the last Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, with Lauren Boyle the only swimmer from 2006 to medal again.

Regan was pleased that many of the young charges emerged this week.

“Some good stuff. Some mixed stuff. But six medals overall is good. Our relay girls especially were very good and that lays a real platform for development of our female freestylers,” Regan said.

“The most pleasing thing for me is that some of our athletes have been put in a different situation by qualifying into middle lanes and that will help them immeasurably through to London.

“I think as a team they did well and will walk away not as fearful about the competition. I said it from the day I arrived that we have some very talented swimmers. But they didn’t see in the mirror what I saw but they are now starting to see that.

“Things are looking pretty bright for New Zealand Swimming.”

Regan said the squad will now set their long term sights on the London Olympics in 20 months with a real sense of belief and purpose.

“You haven’t got a crystal ball to look into the future but I would say with anything you must have a foundation and this is a strong foundation. There’s still plenty of work to do and still plenty of miles to do in the pool, still plenty of events. We have to put them into really difficult situations so they can learn to handle the stress.

“In fact I was probably more interested in how they handled the pressure rather than the result and it has been a good positive move forward for us.”

Regan said a number of the young swimmers learned how to compete at this level and handle a multisport games.

“They all want to swim the best time every time they get on the blokes. What people don’t realise is that you do your best time when you enjoy it and are relaxed.

“They have to stop thinking about result and think about process. Let’s do process work and then result will come after it as a result.”

Some will head home to prepare for December’s FINA World Short Course Championships.

Medals:
Silver
Women 4x200m freestyle relay: Lauren Boyle, Amaka Gessler, Penny Marshall, Tash Hind.
Gareth Kean, 200m backstroke
Daniel Bell, 100m backstroke
Glenn Snyders, 50m breaststroke

Bronze
Hayley Palmer, 50m freestyle
Women 4x100m freestyle