Susan Lewis

Swimmer Susan Hunter reached her career peak at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, when she earned bronze medals in the 200m and 400m individual medley events.

Hunter’s fine swimming tended to be somewhat overlooked at those Games because of the heroics of Jaynie Parkhouse, especially, and Mark Treffers, who both won gold medals for New Zealand.

But Hunter, competing against some world-class opposition in Christchurch, deserves full credit for her results.

The Christchurch swimmer, born in 1955, was nurtured at the strong Wharenui club, under the expert eye of coach Pic Parkhouse.

She began setting national age records and soon attracted the attention of the New Zealand selectors, who sent her to the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games when she was still only 14.

In Edinburgh, she not surprisingly found the going tough, swimming 1min 14.02s in the 100m backstroke, and 2min 43.73s in the 200m backstroke and finding herself in the bottom half of both fields.

However, she pointed to future successes with her results in the two individual medley swims. In the 200m individual medley she recorded 2min 35.8s in her heat and followed that with 2min 33.3s in the final, which placed her 5th.

She went even better in the 400m individual medley, with 5min 20.63s in her heat and 5min 20.10s in the final, for 4th spot.

For someone so young, Hunter had a big workload in Edinburgh, also taking a place in the New Zealand 4 x 100m freestyle relay team that finished fourth. The New Zealanders, Felicity Crawford, Judith Wright, Hunter and Cathy Whiting, were only half a second away from edging out England for a bronze medal.

In 1972, Hunter was named New Zealand Swimmer of the Year.

At the Munich Olympics that year, she was unable to progress to any finals. She swam 1min 10.06s for the 100m backstroke, 2min 28.28s for the 200m backstroke, 2min 30.29s for the 200m individual medley (when she was 14th overall in an event dominated by legendary Shane Gould and Kornelia Ender) and 5min 14.47s for the 400 individual medley, an excellent swim that left her 9th and heartbreakingly close to making the final.

And so the Christchurch, 1974. In the backstroke, she made the finals of the 100m and 200m. Her 1min 09.06s in the 100m final placed her 7th. In the 200m, her 2min 26.27s pushed her into 6th place.

In the 200m individual medley, she won her heat and then recorded 2min 26.18s in the final, which earned her a bronze medal. It remained her best time for this event.

She actually went even better in the 400m individual medley. After placing second in her heat in 5min 08.96s, she led the final at the halfway point before Canadians Leslie Cliff and Becky Smith charged ahead. Hunter held off rising Australian star Sally Lockyer for 3rd.

In the 4 x 100m freestyle relay, Parkhouse, Allison Calder, Suzanne Kennedy and Hunter were extremely competitive and finished a close 5th.

Hunter rounded out her Games career at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In the 200m backstroke her 2min 26.21s effort in the heat left her 26th overall. And in the 400m individual medley she swam 5min 03.82s, a personal best, and was edged out of a place in the final, finishing 10th overall.

Besides her Games swimming, Hunter attended two world championships. In the 1973 championships in Belgrade, she swam exceptionally well in the medley events. In the 200m, her 2min 29.99s placed her 9th overall and just outside the final. In the 400m her heat time of 5min 08.36s, then a New Zealand record, made her 4th fastest qualifier. In the final her 5min 10.28s placed her 6th.

At the 1975 championships in Cali, Colombia, she entered three events, the 200m and 400m medley and 200m backstroke, but was unable to advance to a final in any.

In all, Hunter won 20 individual New Zealand titles – 800m freestyle in 1974; 100m backstroke in 1972, 73 and 74; 200m backstroke in 1973 and 74; 200m butterfly in 1972 and 73; 200m individual medley in 1970, 71, 72, 73 and 74; and 400m individual medley in 1970, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 and 76.

Susan Hunter married fellow Canterbury swimmer Brent Lewis, who died in 2022. Lewis competed in the 1974 Commonwealth Games breaststroke even.