Daniel Hunter provided the New Zealand swimming team with a fillip with his good form in the 50m butterfly in the first evening session at the Games pool.
After qualifying comfortably for the semi-finals earlier in the day, Hunter recorded a personal best time of 23.93s, which was good enough to qualify fifth for the final. It was the first time he had cracked the 24-second barrier.
Given the cut-throat nature of his event, a medal is not out of the question.
There was more good news in the 50m butterfly when Hunter’s team-mate, Sam Perry, recorded his second personal best of the day. He too went under 24s for the first time, stopping the clock at 23.99, good enough to qualify him in sixth position for the final.
“My goal here was to swim a personal best time. I came close this morning and only missed by 0.01s, so I’m really happy with tonight’s result and to have Sam in the final too,” Hunter said.
There was a sensation when defending champion and Games record holder Ben Proud was disqualified in his morning heat.
“It’s unfortunate for that to happen to Ben,” Hunter said. “He’s a great guy and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, but now there’s an outside chance of a medal. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”
The other good news for New Zealand from the first evening session in the pool was Corey Main’s effort in qualifying seventh in the men’s 100m backstroke. Main’s time was 55.02s.
New Zealand missed a medal in the 4 x 100m women’s freestyle relay, when they finished fourth in the final. Laticia Transom, Georgia Marris, Carina Doyle and Helena Gasson recorded 3min 43.77s. Though they were fourth, they were some distance between third-placed England’s time of 3min 38.40s. The Australian team set a world record of 3min 30.05s in this event.
In other racing, Bronagh Ryan swam 32.70s for 16th overall in the women’s 50m breaststroke and Gasson and Marris missed out on the women’s 100m butterfly final. Hasson’s 59.70s placed her 12th overall and Marris’s 1min 00.58s placed her 16th overall.