Pressure on swim team

Press, 21 August 1976, Page 52

Pressure on swim team

By

KEVIN TUTTY

New Zealand’s Olympic swimmers will be absent from the C.B.A. winter national championships at the Wharc nui pool this week-end, hilt in spite of this the entries will ensure interesting racing.

A team of 10 will leave on Tuesday for the Australian winter nationals in Brisbane, and this group is being heralded as challengers for places in the Edmonton and world championships teams in 1978.

It will be this group — and not the top swimmers as is usually the case — who will have the pressure on them to do well. If they do not there are others who will be there to challenge them. It is an indication of the growing depth of New Zealand swimming that the top 20 swimmers can be challenged for their places.

Probably the most competitive races will be the women’s 100 and 200 m breaststroke. Only 4.4 sec separates the nine swimmers in the heats, so competition for lanes in the final will be fierce.

In the 200 m breaststroke, Rebecca Tohill (Otago), a member of the New Zealand team to Brisbane, has a superior qualifying time, but

| the national champion. Jans [Lowe (Bay of Plenty) ana i two young Canterbury girls, ' Rickie Binning and Tracy Turnbull, will be strong challengers. Of the men’s races, the 100 m backstroke and freestyle should be closest. In the freestyle there are 1C swimmers within 2.3 sec of each other on qualifying times. The two fastest ar« Bryce Armstrong (Waikato) and John Payne (Hawkes Bay-Poverty Bay), both members of the team to Brisbane. lan Bullock (Otago) who narrowly missed selection in the New Zealand Olympic team is fifth and eighl qualifier respectively in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke. It is difficult to see him being beaten for the titles, although two young rivals, Gary Burring (Auckland] and Barry Salisbury (Wellington) and Bullock’s old rival, Neville Wiig (Auckland) will be seeking to lower his superiority in the stroke.