After a year of disruption, our top swimmers are trialling in Auckland this week for both the world champs and the Commonwealth Games - just six weeks apart. Dave Crampton looks at six of our leading female contenders.
There will be a few different faces in the New Zealand swimming team since last year's Tokyo Olympics.
Backstroker Ali Galyer and freestylers Hayley McIntosh and Carina Doyle have all retired. And Mya Rasmussen has finally cracked a senior team, her first wearing the silver fern since winning gold in the 400m individual medley at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games.
Olympian Helena Gasson has now qualified for her second world championships. Swimming New Zealand brought the world championships qualifying period back four months, now starting from April 2021 and including Tokyo performances. That suddenly qualified Gasson in the 200m IM, a standard she met at last year’s Olympic trials. The change also qualified McIntosh, who was unaware until LockerRoom recently made contact.
New Zealand’s top four 200m freestyle swimmers have now met the relay standards for the world championships in Budapest in June. Most of them qualified at last year’s Olympic trials, so they no longer need to swim the times at this week’s trials to be nominated for selection.
Four of our top six female swimmers will be competing at the NZ trials. One is currently ranked in the top two in the Commonwealth in her favoured event; another has not competed in a 50m pool outside New Zealand. Just one has represented New Zealand at a Commonwealth Games before.
It's going to be a demanding year, with only six weeks now separating the world championships, from June 18, and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games starting July 28.
Erika Fairweather
New Zealand’s youngest Tokyo Olympian, Fairweather is clearly one to watch, given her medal prospects.
Fairweather has already qualified for two events in both the Commonwealth Games and the world championships, through her Olympics performances. Just 17 in Tokyo, she set a New Zealand Open record of 4m 02.28s in the heats of the 400m freestyle, placing eighth in the final.
She’s ranked second in the Commonwealth in that event, between Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus from Australia, and Canadian record holder Summer McIntosh, who’s just 15.
She's the current 200m freestyle world junior champion, and also qualified for both this year’s pinnacle events when she swam 0.02 seconds inside the 1m 57.28s Commonwealth Games qualifying time in her Olympic heat; she will also anchor any selected relay.
For her swimming efforts, Fairweather won the emerging talent award at this year’s Halberg Awards. She now holds no less than 27 national age group records – and that’s just in freestyle.
In her first year out of school, Fairweather is studying environmental science at Massey University as an extramural student.
She’s used to swimming two big events in the space of a year, after competing at the 2018 Youth Olympics aged 14, and swimming in the finals at the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific championships, breaking New Zealand age group records in most of her events.
However the world championships and the Commonwealth Games are just weeks apart, and she’ll still only be 18.
Eve Thomas
Distance swimmer Eve Thomas has been based in Australia, swimming at the St Peter’s Western club under Australian head coach Dean Boxall. She’s the daughter of British swimmer Sarah Hardcastle, who won two Olympic swimming medals as a 15-year-old.
Thomas swam at the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific championships in Fiji, along with Fairweather and Chelsey Edwards. All three competed in the 4x200m freestyle relay and did the same at the 2019 world championships to qualify for the Tokyo Games. Fairweather and Thomas went on to swim the relay at Tokyo.
At the Olympics, she clocked 16m 29.66s in the 1500m, well under the qualifying time for this year’s world championships.
But, the 1500m is not on offer at the Commonwealth Games for women, so the 800m freestyle is a focus for Thomas. At Tokyo she dropped six seconds from her lifetime best in the 800m for a better ranking – fourth in the Commonwealth - than her 1500m event.
She lowered her time further last month to 8m 31.86s at the New South Wales championships, a qualifying competition.
Thomas is getting closer to the 8m 24.77s time her mother swam at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, and is three seconds off the qualifying time for Birmingham, so she’ll be seeking to lower her times further at these trials.
Chelsey Edwards
Chelsey Edwards helped qualify New Zealand for the Tokyo Olympics in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 2019 world championships in Korea. It was her first senior pinnacle competition, having previously represented New Zealand at the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific championships in Fiji. But she wasn’t able to meet the Olympic standard at last year’s trials.
In November, she moved to Australia to train with the sprint coach at the Knox Pymble club, Leanne Speechley. She’s since lowered her 50m freestyle time - her first lifetime best in two years - and in January, met the 200m relay qualifying time for the world championships.
She will seek to lower her freestyle times further at the Australian trials in May, as she’s not swimming at the New Zealand trials.
If Edwards is to compete at her first Commonwealth Games this year, she must be one of New Zealand’s top four swimmers who collectively clock 7m 59.50s, equal to top 10 at Tokyo. It’s a tough ask.
Edwards is also the country’s top ranked swimmer in the 50m and 100m events. Qualifying times are tough; she’d have to break New Zealand Open records to qualify for both pinnacle events this year.
Laura Littlejohn
Rising star Laura Littlejohn may be starting her last year at St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton, but she’s among the top short course swimmers in New Zealand and is one of four swimmers who have met the qualifying standard for the 4x200m freestyle relay.
Last month she was told she’d met the relay standard for the world championships while attempting to qualify for the 2021 Olympics.
Littlejohn could be off to her first long course competition outside New Zealand – her second world championships - as the world juniors competition she qualified for in Russia has been twice postponed, first due to Covid-19, then the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s now likely world juniors could be held in Peru at the same time as Junior Pan Pacific championships in Hawaii in August.
At trials - and at the national age croup champs in Wellington later this month – Littlejohn should also qualify in several events for these Junior Pan Pacific championships.
She has only competed once outside Australasia, and has never raced in a 50m pool overseas. She was the only New Zealander to compete at the world short course championships (25m pool) in Abu Dhabi, where she almost secured a reserve spot into a final.
What’s promising is that she’s regularly lowering her times and is New Zealand’s best-ever short course teenage sprinter, breaking at least five national age group records in December.
Mya Rasmussen
Mya Rasmussen has been one of the country’s top medley swimmers since her mid-teens. She currently holds nine national age group records in the 400m individual medley (IM), but has never competed in a senior pinnacle competition.
At last month’s New South Wales championships, Rasmussen clocked 4m 42.33s to qualify for the world championships in the 400m IM. It was her best time since moving to Australia nearly four years ago, getting the nod for nomination to her first senior international team.
Rasmussen represented New Zealand aged 15, winning 400m IM gold at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games in Bahamas. She clocked 4m 42.19s when she was 17, four seconds ahead of the field. This time remains her lifetime best and would have qualified her for the 2016 Rio Olympics had she swam it at trials.
After the Commonwealth Youth Games, Rasmussen moved to Australia for better competition. She won’t be swimming at the New Zealand trials – in any case, she needs to lower her 400m IM time by nearly four seconds to qualify for the Commonwealth Games.
In fact, Rasmussen will have to break a 13-year New Zealand Open record by more than half a second to qualify, even though her time swam last month would have qualified her for a Commonwealth Games final in 2018.
Helena Gasson
Olympian Helena Gasson last represented New Zealand at a senior championships at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. While she qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 100m butterfly, she was not able to qualify for Tokyo.
Trialling for Tokyo with an injury, she was just 0.12 seconds off the qualifying time in her favoured 200m individual medley (IM), and would have had to break her own New Zealand Open record to qualify in the 100m butterfly.
However, her heat time of 2m 12.68s in the 200m IM was good enough for her to qualify for her second world championships.
While missing the Olympics, she competed in the International Swimming League, an annual professional swimming series, in a team-based competition format with fast-paced race sessions.
In an 18-month period, Gasson broke 20 New Zealand records, and currently holds nearly half of all short course open swimming records. She now needs to convert those good performances into breaking long course records.
While she also has New Zealand long course open records in butterfly, her favoured event is 200m IM and she’ll be seeking to lower her times at trials.
