Swimmers strike top form

Laticia Transom, enjoying competing “at home”, continued her fine form in the pool in today’s heat of the women’s 50m freestyle.

Transom, just 16, is from Taihape but now lives on the Gold Coast.

She certainly looked at home today, recording her second personal best of the Commonwealth Games on her way to qualifying 10^th for the semi-finals with a time of 25.96s. The fastest qualifier in the 50m freestyle was Australian Cate Campbell with 24.24s.

There was excellent news for New Zealand in the men’s 400m individual medley when Bradlee Ashby and Lewis Clareburt both qualified for the final.

Ashby was timed at 4min 18.73s and was the fifth fastest qualifier. Clareburt swam 4min 19.16s to be the sixth fastest.

“I went out too hard and died coming home,” Ashby said. “But to be only two clicks away from a PB shows there’s more in the tank for later.”

In the women’s 100m backstroke, Bobbi Gichard enjoyed massive support from some dedicated fans in the crowd, who kept up a chant of “Go Bobbi, go” throughout her race. It seemed to do the trick – she swam 1min 01.33s to qualify ninth for the final.

While pleased to advance, Gichard has another target in her sights. “I’m yet to break the one-minute mark, so that’s certainly a target tonight,” she said.

The strong New Zealand 4 x 100m freestyle squad of Daniel Hunter, Corey Main, Sam Perry and Matthew Stanley recorded 3min 17.96s to qualify third for the final. While that result was most encouraging for New Zealand fans, there was a note of caution: a couple of major swim nations did not field their frontline swimmers in the heat, so the New Zealanders will need to be at their best to hold their third ranking in the final.

Tupou Neiufi was fifth in her women’s S9 100m backstroke race in a time of 1min 16.87s and now moves forward to the final.

Chris Arbuthnott and Jesse Reynolds both qualified in the men’s S9 100m freestyle. Arbuthnott qualified fifth with a personal best time of 58.78s and Reynolds, who swam 1min 00.06s, was sixth.

“I’m pleased to have Jesse in the final with me,” Arbuthnott said, “but we know we’ll have to go a lot faster and swim PBs.”

Experienced Matthew Stanley, a veteran of two Olympic Games and four world championships, missed out on a spot in the men’s 200m freestyle final when his time of 1min 48.75s was only good enough for 12th overall. At Glasgow four years ago, Stanley was seventh in the 200m freestyle final.

However, any disappointment will be largely allayed if the 4 x 200m freestyle relay team that features Stanley can bring home a medal.