Thirteen Aquablacks have been named to represent New Zealand in swimming at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games starting July 23.
The team – including nine women – is headlined by former world champions Erika Fairweather and Lewis Clareburt. With Hazel Ouwehand they are in the medal hunt, with Fairweather a strong medal favourite in all four of her individual events.
World Junior 50m butterfly champion Zoe Pedersen, 19, is the youngest in the team; Ouwehand, 26, is the oldest and is targeting a Commonwealth record in the event.
Just four Aquablacks met the top qualifying standards in individual events due to standards being set at a level of medal-winning potential. All but three of the others have been selected for freestyle relays.
Fairweather is the only relay swimmer who has met qualifying standards for individual events. She should be seeded second in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle, but will probably have to set a personal best to win gold in her favoured 400m freestyle.
“Glasgow is going to be an amazing experience and I’m really looking forward to the competition,” she said.
“I’m really excited to have the opportunity to compete for my first Commonwealth Games medal.”
For the first time since 1930, nobody was initially selected to swim backstroke, a discipline New Zealand entered seven swimmers in at the previous games in Birmingham in 2022, winning a gold and two silvers.
However, backstrokers Amber George and Savannah -Eve Martin were added to the roster after the selecting body, the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC), recently opened additional quota spots to national sports organisations. Fifth ranked into Glasgow, George defended multiple national backstroke titles this year, with Martin also making her Aquablack debut at last year’s world championships.
Swimming New Zealand head coach Graham Hill said the team is building well ahead of their Glasgow 2026 campaign.
“The depth in this squad, across relays, individual events and Para swimming gives us real reason for confidence. We’re going to be very competitive and every athlete on this team is capable of outstanding performances.”
NZOC chief executive Nicki Nicol said: “At any Games, the swimming events are always keenly followed, and the competitiveness and standards will again be high. We know you will all represent New Zealand well and wear the fern with pride.”
Swimming New Zealand set one women’s freestyle relay qualifying standard so leniently that it appeared well short of the stated performance level of having potential to achieve a top-three placing at Glasgow, a requirement of the NZOC.
It also made times for individual events among the toughest in the Commonwealth. Some standards were set at a level that only four swimmers to compete at Glasgow have reached in the past two or three years.
Consequently, the only way nearly half this Aquablack team is entering individual events is by being selected for a relay.
Most of the 13 are selected as top-three potential in their key events, including relays, so medals are expected.
Willmer, the sole breaststroker, and Clareburt, the only one competing in individual medleys, are both Commonwealth record holders. Wilmer is competing up a classification at Glasgow, taking on the SB9 category, with the SB8 category not on the Games programme as it was in Birmingham.
Clareburt is aiming to be the first able-bodied Aquablack to stand on the podium across three consecutive Commonwealth Games in individual events, after being the sole swimming medallist in 2018 and a multiple gold medallist in 2022.
Three of the six in this 2026 team who competed in 2022 medalled. Fairweather and Eve Thomas, at fourth, were the top female able-bodied Aquablacks, but this year, a top placing of fourth won’t be good enough. Even a best of third would be disappointing.
Fairweather has recently returned from Mare Nostrum, a prestigious annual international swimming circuit in the Mediterranean, heading off top Olympic and world-class athletes in her 400m freestyle event in preparation for Glasgow.
Seven athletes are making their Commonwealth Games debut. Most competed at last year’s world championships. The highest placed was Caitlin Deans’ 10th in the 800m freestyle.
Deans, however, had to swim six and a half seconds quicker to meet Swimming New Zealand’s self-imposed qualifying standards this year, but couldn’t. Nor could Thomas meet any; she is ranked fourth in the Commonwealth of those slated to compete in the 400m freestyle at Glasgow. With Deans, Fairweather and Milana Tapper, she is swimming the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
Unlike men’s relay standards, the women’s relay standard was set easier than it was for last year’s world championships. Swimming New Zealand had already decided months ago that it was going to nominate this relay to the NZOC for selection.
This means that the relay swimmers can also contest individual events through the back door without an assessment on whether they can potentially place top-six. In 2022, qualifying standards for individual events for Birmingham were easier, but no relays were selected.
All except Willmer are also selected in a slightly bigger team to compete at the Pan Pacific championships in the USA from August 12, 10 days after competition concludes in Glasgow. Relays are now the main vehicle for men to enter individual events, as only one man has made a World Aquatics A standard this season.
The Pan Pacific championships are contested by Pacific rim countries such as China and Pan Pacific charter nations Japan, the United States, Australia, Canada, as well as South Africa. The latter three nations are also competing in Glasgow.
Aquablacks, while looking for faster times at Glasgow than they set at Birmingham, will find it tougher to place highly at the Pan Pacific championships, mainly due to the presence of top American swimmers. They will be up against six world record holders: Australian backstroker Kaylee McKeown, Canada’s Summer McIntosh and American Katie Ledecky in freestyle, and Americans Gretchen Walsh and Kate Douglas in butterfly and backstroker Regan Smith.
As McIntosh is bypassing Glasgow for the Pan Pacifics, Fairweather could get medals in all four of her events in Scotland. Should she do so, she would join just Rebecca Perrott’s 1978 feat of winning four medals in one Games.
Ouwehand and Fairweather look set to be the first non-para, wahine Aquablacks to grace a Commonwealth Games podium since Lauren Boyle in 2014, at the same Tollcross International Swimming Centre that will host competition in Glasgow next month.
This was also the Games that the Commonwealth record was last broken in the women’s 50m butterfly, and Ouwehand wants to have a crack at it in her Glasgow final.
That means she’s going for gold. But this season, just 0.12 seconds – that’s about 20cm – separates the top three contestants, so that looks to be closely contested. Ouwehand is ranked just 0.01 seconds ahead of third, the tightest of margins. As Ouwehand puts it, “every teeny tiny detail matters”.
Only five able-bodied women Aquablacks have ever won a Commonwealth swimming gold, with only Boyle doing so since 1990. None have won Olympic gold, or silver. Only Fairweather has won world championship gold, and Boyle is the sole other to grace a podium at world championship level.
Fairweather’s Commonwealth Games campaign will be assisted by McIntosh and fellow Canadian Mary Sophie Harvey skipping Glasgow for the Pan Pacifics and the retirement of world record holding Australian Ariarne Titmus.
However, if Australian Lani Pallister sweeps the golds in middle and longer distance freestyle events, Fairweather may be shut out of top spots. Australian and Olympic champion Mollie O’Callaghan will be tough to head off in the 200m freestyle.
For her part, Ouwehand will benefit from the retirements of Australia’s most decorated Olympian, Emma McKeon, and Canada’s Maggie McNeil.
Females selected for the Commonwealth Games are Caitlin Deans, Chelsey Edwards,Savannah-Eve Martin, Erika Fairweather, Amber George, Hazel Ouwehand, Zoe Pedersen, Milana Tapper, and Eve Thomas.
Joining them in the Pan Pacific team are Milan Glintmeyer, and Alyssa Tapper. Brooke Anderson, Jessica Johnstone, Rylee Sayer, and Gaby Smith will be at the Para Pan Pacific championships.
