Aijaz Rahi/AP
Lewis Clareburt from New Zealand after winning the gold medal.
So much for the fact that you’re a weak breaststroke.
Record smasher Lewis Clareburt won the men’s 400m individual medley at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Sunday morning (NZ time), en route to Australian Brendon Smith and Scottish Duncan Scott in a new Games record of 4:08.70 .
In a close match, Clareburt led the entire time, but secured the winning lead in the third 100m medley with a stroke that was always his weakest to date.
HEAVEN SPORTS
Paraswimming to victory in the women’s 100m freestyle S9 in Birmingham.
“It’s weird to think how far it’s come,” said a delighted Clareburt shortly after his win.
“I’ve worked so much on it and it never really made a move, until the last few weeks.
“I was talking to [coach] Gary [Hollywood] before, and he was ‘well, this battle is one of your main strokes now’ after seeing it a number of times we’ve done it.
“It’s good to know that what we’re doing works, and it worked at the right time — it all came together at once.”
As a result, Clareburt became only the third New Zealand non-para swimmer to take the top spot on the podium this century, shattering the Commonwealth Games record with his time of 4:08.70 almost a whopping three seconds faster than the previous best figure.
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Australia’s Brendon Smith, New Zealand’s Lewis Clareburt and Scotland’s Duncan Scott pose with their medals after the men’s 400m IM.
Moss Burmester won gold in the men’s 200m butterfly in Melbourne in 2006, while Lauren Boyle triumphed in the women’s 400m freestyle eight years ago in Glasgow.
Previously, Cameron Gray won a shock bronze for New Zealand in the final of the men’s 50m butterfly – a result Clareburt says inspired him.
The 18-year-old Aucklander was seventh fastest in qualifying, but made his way into lane one, finishing third behind Benjamin Proud of England and Tzen Wei Teong of Singapore in 23.27 seconds – 0.01 seconds ahead of Dylan Carter of Trinidad and Tobago.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
New Zealand’s Cameron Gray displays his bronze medal from the men’s 50m butterfly final at the Commonwealth Games at the Sandwell Aquatics Center in Birmingham.
Gray said he had to take off his glasses to make sure the scoreboard really told him he had won bronze.
Clareburt was the best qualifier of the morning’s semi-final, 0.60 seconds faster than Smith.
The Wellingtonian is considered a potential gold medalist since his bronze in the same event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. He placed third at the 2019 World Championships in South Korea, becoming the fifth New Zealander to medal at the World Championships and the first man to do so since Danyon Loader in 1994.
He was disappointed with his seventh place finish in the final of the Tokyo Olympics last year, when he was the second fastest qualifier to the final, but struggled to sleep ahead of the final, with heats being held overnight. and finals the next morning.
Clareburt entered the Games confident and in strong form after a training camp in Spain, despite suffering from Covid-19 ahead of the world championships in Hungary last month.
He finished fourth in the final of his specialist 400IM event in a time of 4:10.98, and although that was 6.70 seconds behind winner Léon Marchand, the Frenchman nearly broke Michael Phelps’ world record set at the Olympics. of 2008 in Beijing.
New Zealand was chasing their fourth pool medal shortly after Clareburt’s win, but 100m backslayer Andrew Jeffcoat finished in a close fourth after the 23-year-old was the third fastest qualifier in a densely packed field.
The New Zealand swim team in Birmingham opened their medal bill on day one with gold for Dame Sophie Pascoe in the women’s S9 100m freestyle and silver for fellow para swimmer Jesse Reynolds in the men’s S9 100m backstroke.
Australian Katja Dedekind set the Sandwell Aquatics Center on fire with a world record win in the women’s 50m freestyle final in 26.56s.