Olympic swimmers justified selection

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 18

Olympic swimmers justified selection

By

KEVIN TUTTY

New Zealand finished without a medal in the swimming pool at Montreal, and against the power of the American men and East German women, that was expected. But when the final results are analysed, the team ranks with the 1974 Commonwealth Games squad as the strongest to represent New Zealand.

The team has still to compete in the American championships in Philadelphia and the Canadian championships in Vancouver, this month, where it could further enhance the satisfactory record it established in Montreal.

Only two swimmers — Rebecca Perrott and Monique Rodahl — reached finals, but only two of the team of nine, John McConnochie and Mark Treffers, failed to reach the criteria set by the swimming selectors.

Nominations for the Olympic team were made on the basis the swimmers would achieve semi-finals or finish in the top 16. Treffers and McConnochie failed by one place to do that.

The swimmers were represented in 15 individual events, and in 12 of them New Zealand records were broken.

Treffers, because he won a gold and silver medal at the Christchurch Commonwealth Games, was expected to produce better performances. So was McConnochie who returned

from the United States in March especially to qualify at the New Zealand championships, and who, after doing that, returned to the northern hemisphere summer.

Monique Rodahl. after an indifferent start in the 100 m backstroke, redeemed herself in the 200 m back! stroke and the 400 m individual medley. In the latter event she became the first New Zealand women to break five minutes for the distance. It is only four years and a half since McConnochie became the first New Zealand man to break the same barrier. Rebecca Perrott was conclusively the best of the New Zealand team. She narrowly missed a bronze medal in the 400 m freestyle, but to finish where she did was a tremendous achievement. In the heats and final she bettered her previous best.time, and the New Zealand record, by s.Bsec.

In the 100 m freestvle heats she was eighth fastest of 45 qualifiers and thus reached the semi-finals. She broke her New Zealand record in the heats, but could not repeat the effort in the semi-finals. In the 200 m freestyle, she failed by nine hundredths of a second to reach the final, but again the New Zealand record fell. She lowered it by o.2sec. Miss Perrott possesses a vast natural ability for swimming. Her tall slender

frame makes her an ideal freestyler, and at 15, her strength will improve as she grows. The New Zealand Amateur Swimming Associate n is certain to take note of the performances of Miss Perrott, whose Olympic build-up was in New Zealand, while McConnochie, Misses Rodhal, Sue Hunter and Lynn Rowe, trained in .North America for varying periods before the Olympics. The N.Z.A.S.A. agreed to allow members of the team to train overseas before the Olympics, rather than to keep them in New Zealand in a coaching school. However, in retrospect, no great advantage was gained by those who trained overseas, and the N.Z.A.S.A. in future would be justified in keeping the team together.

Apart from Misses Perrott and Rodahl, Miss Rowe was the most consistent performer. In both butterfly races she lowered the New Zealand records. The first was the 200 m butterfly. She was thirteenth fastest of 32 starters in the heats and knocked I.9sec off her own record. Over 100 m. she reached the semi-finals and in both the heat and semifinal bettered the national record. She took a total of I.2sec off the record she held jointly with Miss Rodahl. Miss Rowe is now world class in this stroke and at. 17 will continue to improve. Brett Naylor who came within l.lsec of breaking the four minute barrier in the 400 m freestyle at the New Zealand championships in March was expected to easily beat the mark

in Montreal. However he drew a slow heat and recorded 4min o.3sec. It was doubly unfortunate because had Naylor broken 4min he would have qualified for the final. He finished tenth fastest of 47 heat starters — an excellent effort — and was a tenth of a second from the final. In the 1500 m freestyle, Naylor broke the 16min barrier for the first time and the New Zealand record. But his time of 15min 52.685ec — 0.1 sec slower than the gold medal winning time at Munich — was sixteenth fastest of 31 starters. Treffers bettered his .previous best time for the distance, finishing 3.ssec behind Naylor, but his 400 m individual medley <. swim was disappointing. Since he won the gold medal in the event at the Commonwealth Games in 1974, Treffers has approached that time only once — at the New Zealand Games last year. John Coutts set new records in both the 100 m and 200 m butterfly. In the 200 m event his time of 2min s.osec made him sixteenth of the 40 entries while in the 100 m he missed the semi-finals by o.lssec. If he can continue to whittle away the butterfly records as he has done

over the last two years, and providing he continues to swim competitively, he will be one of the senior members of the Edmonton Commonwealth Games team. Allison Calder competed in two events, the 400 m and the 800 m freestyle. In both she bettered her personal best times, and in the longer race her own New Zealand record. Unfortunately, in the 400 m she had to take second place to Miss Perrott. Miss Calder did well, though, to finish fifteenth fastest of the 34 starters. In the 800 m she was eleventh of 19 starters. In both cases she vindicated her selection. Miss Hunter, New Zealand’s most consistent swimmer over six years, was disappointing in her two events. That she had to wait until the last two days of competition for her races might have had some affect on her. In her specialist event—the 400 m individual medley—she did smin 3.Bsec, which equalled her New Zealand record set at the world championships in Cali, Colombia 'last year. Had she broken smin as was hoped, she would have qualified for the final. As it was, she was tenth fastest of 21 starters. In the 200 m backstroke her time was almost 2sec off her best. Rebecca Ewert, the tenth member of the team, was outclassed in the springboard dive. Even

though she had two months training in America with Dick Smith, and performed near her best, she was well behind the top divers. Miss Ewert was 76 points ahead of the second placed diver in the springboard event at the national championships in March, which indicates just how far behind in international standard New Zealand women divers are.