{"id":541987,"date":"2026-07-24T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/541987\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:22:08","slug":"commonwealth-games-kiwi-swimmers-to-contend-for-medals-after-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/541987\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Games: Kiwi swimmers to contend for medals after qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand swimmers have made a flying start in the pool at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, putting themselves in contention for medals<\/a> on opening day.<\/p>\n

Erika Fairweather posted the fastest time of the 400 metre freestyle heats, qualifying first in a time of 4 minutes 6.42 seconds, with team-mate Caitlin Deans qualifying third in the same race on Friday (NZT).<\/p>\n

The Kiwi pair were separated by Australian Amelia Weber in second.<\/p>\n

Fairweather would look to go one better at Glasgow after narrowly missing the podium in the 400 metre freestyle final at Birmingham.<\/p>\n

Eve Thomas also placed third in her heat for the same event, behind Australian pair Lani Pallister and Jenna Forrester.<\/p>\n

The trio of New Zealand women would face off in the 400 metre freestyle final due to happen about 6.05am Saturday morning (NZT).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lewis Clareburt, who clinched double gold and bronze at Birmingham in 2022, qualified second in the 200 metre individual medley, behind Englishman Thomas Dean.<\/p>\n

Clareburt’s qualifying time was 1.2 seconds shy of his bronze-medal performance at Birmingham.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old would vie for a fifth Commonwealth Games medal in the 200 metre medley final about 6.15am Saturday (NZT).<\/p>\n

Hazel Ouwehand also booked a final berth finishing second in a tightly-contested 50 metre butterfly heat.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old’s time of 26.4 seconds was 0.16 seconds behind Jessica Thompson, of South Africa.<\/p>\n

Zoe Pedersen also finished second in her 50 metre butterfly heat, completing the swim in 26.6 seconds, 1.05 seconds behind Australian Alex Perkins.<\/p>\n

Ouwehand and Pedersen will contest the 50 metre butterfly final about 7.10am Saturday NZT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand swimmers have made a flying start in the pool at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, putting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-541987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}