Kim shows early promise

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 20

Kim shows early promise

Kim Dewar, the 14-year» old Wharenui swimmer, was the most impressive performer in the senior inter-club swimming carnival at Queen Elizabeth II Park on Saturday.

Dewar stuck like a ieech to her club-mate and New Zealand representative, Rickie Binning, in the 200 m breaststroke and finished only half a stroke behind in the" excellent time of 2min 51.65, just 0.3 s slower than her rival. Miss Dewar will swim in the finals of the Speedo teleprinter contest next week and must be favoured to win the national 14 years title. The time was 8.2 s better than she swum in the national age-group championships in Nelson last February when she was third in the 13 years final, won by Binning. Miss Binning’s time was also creditable for this early stage of the season. She is in the middle of a build-up aimed at winning a place in the New Zealand team to swim in the Australian championships in February, or if she can improve sufficiently, a place in the elite team to tour Europe in March and April. Her best performance of the evening however was in the 100 m breaststroke. Miss Binning swam Im in 18.8 s, a very fast time and only 0.7 s outside her Canterbury record and I.ls outside the New Zealand record. She should get a chance to show improvement in the event in the national inter-region carnival at Dunedin in two weeks. In his speciality butterfly events Michael Smith (Wharenui) returned two good times. He had easily the best time in the ' 200 m butterfly at 2min 12.85, only 4.0 s outside his best effort. In the 100 m event he recorded lmin 2.5 s but was only second. The race was won by the Commonwealth Games representative, Paul Rowe in lmin 0.6 s Rowe, however, gained the best part of a second when he got a jump on the rest of the field at the start, and was not recalled. Grant Gillard (Wharenui) returned a pleasing time in the 100 m backstroke. He beat his club-mate, Gavin

H Dixon, who had earlier won ■ ;the 200 m event in 2min ■ 18.8 s. Gillard’s time was 0.4 s i faster than he recorded in ;the final of the 100 m backstroke in the New Zealand /championships last March, an indication that he could ibe close to a medal at the nationals next March. Dixon’s 200 m time was J 3.0 s better than his effort in ' the national championship ; final last season. He will not 11 have to improve his time 'much to be among the me/dallists next March. ! Melanie Jones (Wharenui) :! has had few swims since her r return from the Co-

i’ monwealth Games and world)” i championships in August, s but her time in the 100 m I r backstroke of Imin 9.3 s was 4 , noteworthy. It was 3.0 s off i'her best time, not a great .Ideal at this early stage of 1 j the season. e Rowe swam a second event the 400 m freestyle, s and returned a useful 4min i 18.3 s while the best time by j a woman was by Rochelle t Inkster at 4min 39.15. s The 100 m freestyle times - were generally slow indicating that most swimmers are ) in the midst of heavy trainr ing and little speed Work is ■ being done. j