Stanley swims into record books
Matthew Stanley removed Danyon Loader’s name from the record books for a second time at the national swimming championships in Auckland last night.
Stanley, 20, who swims under coach Scott Talbot at the High Performance Centre, beat Loader’s national record for the second night in a row in winning the 200m freestyle and going under the qualifying time for the London Olympics at the West Wave Aquatic Centre in Henderson.
It followed his record-breaking effort in the 400m freestyle on Sunday night.
It also marked another outstanding night, with four more performances under the qualifying standard for London and two New Zealand records.
The highlight was the men’s 100m backstroke where Wellington’s Gareth Kean and North Shore’s Daniel Bell both went under the standard.
The night was wound up by outstanding North Shore swimmer Lauren Boyle, who beat her national time in winning the 400m freestyle.
Stanley cleared out to win the 200m freestyle in 1:47.57, .06 of a second inside the national record set by Loader in winning gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Watching from the stands was Loader, who was thrilled with the performance.
‘‘I’ve watched both nights with Graham Laing, who was his old coach before he moved to the High Performance Centre, and Graham is the son of my coach,’’ Loader said. ‘‘He is a really good talent and you know if he did that 16 years ago, it would have won him a gold medal.’’
Stanley, who posted his second straight time in the top 10 in the world this year, said he was resetting his sights on performances in London.
‘‘I came here to get multiple qualifying events for London,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ve achieved that and I am excited about it. But I don’t just want to attend the Olympics, I want to achieve, so there’s a lot of hard work to come.’’
Stanley, Steven Kent (North Shore), Dylan Dunlop-barrett (New Plymouth Aquatics) and Andrew Mcmillan (Cromwell) met the selection standard. They will form a national relay combination to attempt to qualify in the 4x200m freestyle relay tomorrow night.
Kean posted the fifth-fastest time this year in his morning heat of the 100m backstroke in 53.58sec. He was only fractionally slower in the final, winning in 53.84.
Bell, 21, came out of the wilderness after a challenging few months to finish second in 54.39, .01 of a second inside the London Olympics qualifying mark.
‘‘It’s been a hard few months. I changed coaches and then had a bad swim at the Australian trials last week. I guess I got the bad one out of the way and tonight was a second-and-a-half faster than my best for the year,’’ Bell said. ‘‘I am there now and I am elated. ‘‘Now I can focus on the hard work,’’ he said.
Boyle was in a class of her own, dominating the 400m freestyle in 4:05.83, which shaved .03 of a second off her national record set at last year’s world championships and was also almost four seconds under the Olympic time.
Coached by Mark Regan at the High Performance Centre, Boyle was delighted to post the seventhfastest time in the world this year after such a long build-up.
In other finals, North Shore’s Penelope Marshall, a member of the women’s freestyle relay team that made the world championships final, showed her versatility in winning the 100m backstroke in 1:01.78 from team-mate Melissa Ingram.
North Canterbury’s Natasha Lloyd, 16, won the 100m breaststroke in 1:11.38, while North Shore’s Samantha Richter broke the national record twice yesterday, clocking 26.66 to win the non-olympic 50m butterfly.