The women's 4x100m freestyle relay team brought the curtain down on the New Zealand swimming championships in Auckland in style with a Commonwealth Games qualifying performance in the final event.
Samantha Lee, Samantha Lucie-Smith, Ellen Quirke and Laura Quilter clocked 3:41.50 in a special time trial which was one second inside the qualifying mark for the Games in Glasgow.
The quartet comprised the fastest four swimmers from the individual final earlier in the meet and produced a time that is the second fastest in the world this year.
It provided a late boost for the New Zealand selectors, who announced a team of 16 to compete at the Games starting in July.
Glasgow-bound Lauren Boyle completed an outstanding meet with victory in the 400m freestyle in 4:06.08 to complete a clean sweep of her three freestyle races, having earlier won over 200m and 800m.
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It was mission accomplished for Boyle who came home early from altitude training with illness.
"I was really happy to qualify this morning so I wanted to go faster. I try to go faster from qualifying to final especially at these open meets when there's not as much pressure," she said.
"Now it is back to the hard work and prepare towards Glasgow."
Para swimming great Sophie Pascoe claimed her second qualifying performance of the week in winning the 100m breaststroke SB9 in 1:19.09, which was more than 8sec inside the qualifying mark.
"I've never been to a Commonwealth Games. It is going to be exciting going away with a new team and a new environment with the whole swimming team."
