In sickness and in health for Clareburt

Three Commonwealth Games medals – including two gold – looked a hugely unlikely return for a sickly Lewis Clareburt a few months back.

The New Zealander grabbed his third swimming gong yesterday when he won bronze behind Duncan Scott (Scotland) and Tom Dean (England) in the men’s 200m individual medley.

Scott led from start to finish to win in a Games record time of 1:56:88. Dean was only 0.13sec behind while Clareburt was just outside his New Zealand record with a time of 1:57:59.

Clareburt’s latest medal added to his two Birmingham golds in the 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley.

But the 23-year-old from Wellington first had to conquer Covid in May, his painful wisdom teeth and food poisoning.

‘‘I think Covid came first – we took a very cautious approach,’’ Clareburt’s coach Gary Hollywood said this week as his charge emerged as one of the meet’s stars after hinting further at his potential at last year’s Tokyo Olympics.

‘‘I had heard some nations were kinda demanding the kids pretty much keep training.

‘‘We probably spent maybe a week longer than we needed too in terms of taking it easy, but we just brought him back slowly – and High Performance Sport NZ gave us some really good guidelines for that.

‘‘We were quite strict on our protocols and worked on the process that rest was best. I think seeing some of the nations perform, maybe we did something right there.’’

Clareburt told Sky Sport of his medal collection in Birmingham: ‘‘It’s been a dream come true. This is what I dreamed of when I was young – getting medals on a world stage. I feel like I’ve made that come true.’’