Lewis Clareburt Gunning to Beat Olympians at New Zealand Opens

Lewis Clareburt. New Zealand Age Group Championships, Session Eight, Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre, Kilbirnie, Wellington, Friday 8th May 2015. Photo: Simon Watts/www.bwmedia.co.nz

Photo Courtesy: Simon Watts/www.bwmedia.co.nz/Swimming New Zealand

Commentary by Dave Crampton, Swimming World Contributor

New Zealand teen Lewis Clareburt is looking to head off local Olympians and world championships representatives at his first national Opens championships starting on April 3, after setting his first ever NAG record at the New Zealand National Age Group competitions on March 23 – and immediately following that up with another.

However, another top teen, Mya Rasmussen, 16, won’t be at New Zealand Opens despite clocking a world top 30 time this year. New Zealand Opens is a world championship qualifying meet, and New Zealand’s top swimmer, Lauren Boyle, who came 9th at Rio, and one of the country’s top para-swimmers, Mary Fisher, are also missing from the programme.

Early last year Clareburt, 17, had not swum under an Olympic B standard or set a national record; he now has three B standards and his first two NAG records, after clocking 4:21.69 in the 400m individual medley, breaking Olympian Bradlee Ashby’s four-year-old NAG record. He followed that up on the same evening with a 200m free NAG, equalling the 1:51.70 record set by Danyon Loader nearly 25 years ago.

He then clocked 2:04.30 in the 200m medley.

While Clareburt had his sights on the 400m IM NAG record, he didn’t realise that the 200m freestyle record was 1:51.

“I thought it was way faster than that. I was just focussing on the 400 IM – I knew that I had a good shot and would come close to it,” he said.

He now has sights on the original record-breaker, when they meet at the New Zealand Opens in Auckland.

“I want to beat Bradlee Ashby and give him a run for his money,” Clareburt said. “I’ve never been to a New Zealand Opens.”

He is unsure how much he can improve after his repeated personal bests.

“I just go in with an open mind, and race away,” he said.

While Clareburt has never faced Ashby at an Open championships, he is top seed ahead of him in the 400m IM heading into this year’s event, and seeded directly behind him in 200m butterfly, while Ashby broke the 200m IM national record at last year’s opens, clocking a sub 2-minute time to qualify for the Rio Olympics. He is also ahead of world championships qualifier Michael Mincham in the 400m freestyle.

Clareburt is not contesting the 200m freestyle at opens – but his best is a full second faster than Ashby’s, who is.

He attributes much of his performance to the work with his coach, Gary Hollywood, since coming back from Junior Panpacs with a 100% record – six personal best in three events.

“I have more confidence in myself – I get that from Gary,” he said. “Since Junior Pan Pacs last year me and my coach have been working on my weaknesses. We’ve really been focusing on my underwater work.”

Now he is raring to go at New Zealand Opens after his eight national titles at NAGs – but Rasmussen won’t be there. Her 400 IM time of 4:44.89, down from 4:48 in December, was faster than all NAG records in New Zealand, and is within two seconds off a world championship qualifying time.

“I was really not expecting it.” She said. “I was crying at the end, I was just so happy – because the Australian Age Groups are so soon we weren’t really focussing on it here so just to PB here was so cool and really unexpected.”

So unexpected, that she did not enter New Zealand Opens in an attempt to lower that time for world champs. Opens entries closed before the start of National Age Group championships started, and thus any 2017 NAG times could not be used as seed times for Opens.

Rasmussen has chosen to bypass NZ Opens to compete in the Australian Age Grades championships in Brisbane from April 16, contesting the 400m and 200m medleys. Clareburt has elected to do the opposite.

Due to the fact that NAGs finished just nine days before the start of Opens, some teens such as backstroker Bobbi Gichard, who attend the last world championships in Kazan, chose to bypass NAGs and the Australian Age Group champions for Opens. However Gabrielle Fa’amausili, 17, will be at both New Zealand events; at NAGs she set four age-records in 50m/100m freestyle and backstroke, and is top seed at Opens for three of them.

Both Clareburt and Rasmussen look likely to be selected for the Commonwealth Youth Games. Swimming New Zealand is not sending a team to World Juniors this year.

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Justin Rothwell

7 years ago

Gary Hollywood nice write up mate and congratulations on the work you guys are putting in.

Gary Hollywood

7 years ago

Reply to Justin Rothwell

Thanks mate. Hopefully the harder we work the luckier we’ll get lol.