Vanessa swims in record times

By anyone’s standards, in any sport, selection for the New Zealand team, three open titles and breaking longstanding records is a great result.

That is exactly what Te Awamutu swimmer Vanessa Ouwehand achieved over the five days of the National Short Course Championships held in Auckland earlier this month.

Her results in the open finals gave her the International Swimming Federation (FINA) B qualifying times for the World Short Course Championships being held in China in December.

It is Vanessa’s first selection to a major world swim meet and capped a fantastic week for the young swimmer.

Vanessa not only took out the 17-18yrs age group titles for 50m, 100m and 200m in her specialist butterfly stroke, but also won the open titles in the same three events.

She broke the Waikato record for 18 year olds in every event she swam — the three fly events and 100m backstroke.

She broke open records for each of the fly events, several of which she already held. She also claimed her first New Zealand record, taking one second off Helen Norfolk’s time of 2.14.10 for 18 year olds set in August 2000, swimming 2.13.01 — close to breaking 2.12.

That 200m fly winning time of 2.13.01 was over five seconds faster than her heat qualifying time.

The race was a double surprise for Vanessa. Going in ranked fifth she had no expectations to win — let alone swim a qualifying time. Not until after the event did she find out she had a New Zealand record.

In the 50m fly she qualified with a 27.34 and was 0.4 of a second off another New Zealand record, recording 26.97 to take the final.

Vanessa was tantalisingly close to breaking the magic minute in the 100m fly, and less than a second off the best in New Zealand, with 1.00.07.

She went on to win the 100m backstroke B final with 1.01.13, another significant step up of over two seconds from her heat time.

Vanessa also swam three relays as part of St Peter’s Club, claiming another title for the 4x100m freestyle and breaking the minute mark for her fly leg of the 4x100m medley.

St Peter’s were runnersup in that event and the 4x50m freestyle.

With no major events between now and December, Vanessa will be preparing for China.