Erika Fairweather of Dunedin turned in an impressive performance in her 400m freestyle heat today to qualify comfortably for tonight's final (tomorrow morning NZ time).
With the fastest eight from the three heats progressing straight into the final, Fairweather’s 4min 02.55s effort placed her third behind former Olympic champion Katie Ledecky and Australia’s world record-holder Ariane Titmus, two of the great names in world swimming at present.
Ledecky won the third heat in 4min 02.19s from Titmus’s 4min 02.46s. Fairweather swam a strong race to win her heat by 0.1s from Canadian Summer McIntosh, the fourth fastest qualifier.
Fairweather, the 2024 world champion over 400m freestyle, said she knew she had to be fast to earn a good position for the final.
"Having Summer beside me was perfect, a good gauge of where I was."
She said it was exciting to get her Olympics under way and that the crowd support was deafening as the swimmers went to their blocks.
Though there are big names in the final, Fairweather did not seem daunted. "The 400m freestyle field has been on the rise for a couple of years. I was at my first Olympics last time. I'm stronger now. I'm all for shaking things up and giving it a go."
Also in the 400m freestyle, another New Zealander, Eve Thomas, swam 4min 11.86s, which placed her 17th overall.
Earlier, in the 100m butterfly heats, Auckland-based Hazel Ouwehand swam a respectable 58.03s, finishing fifth in her heat and 18th fastest overall. With the top 16 swimmers progressing to the semi-finals, she missed by just 0.13s. In last year’s world champs, Ouwehand was timed at 59.81s and was 26th overall.