In 2022, Hazel Ouwehand was the nation’s solely swimmer to fail to swim a closing on the Commonwealth Video games.
She additionally did not qualify for the 2024 world championships.
Now, Ouwehand, 26, is the nation’s prime sprinter and ranked prime eight on this planet this season.
Unreasonable qualifying requirements for sprinters in stroke occasions, set at making the world’s prime six, had been designed by Swimming New Zealand to make sure sprinters like Ouwehand didn’t qualify in 2024, as such sprints weren’t Olympic occasions.
They’re now, and Ouwehand has risen to be one of many nation’s prime swimmers; she is the one swimmer to interrupt nationwide open swimming data in every of the previous three years since she reached her first.
In her favoured 50m butterfly, she’s concentrating on 24.80s at July’s Glasgow Commonwealth Video games. Even when she clocks beneath 25.20s and not one of the prime swimmers do massive lifetime bests this yr, she’d be on for gold and the Commonwealth file.
“That’s the purpose,” Ouwehand says of her goal time. “You need to attain for the celebrities.”
Taking a Commonwealth file could be fairly the achievement for somebody who simply over three years in the past had not even gained a nationwide title. However Ouwehand, is devoted, decided and hard-working.
“I’m resilient and protracted; I’m like that annoying rash that by no means goes away,” she says.
She can also be one in all solely three Aquablacks to satisfy powerful qualifying Glasgow requirements up to now. These requirements had been aligned to potential podium placings, set with the intent that few would meet them because the NZ Olympic Committee, which selects groups for the Commonwealth Video games, has mentioned simply 10 swimmers might be despatched to Glasgow.
Ouwehand was one athlete anticipated to satisfy occasions, and is the one swimmer not funded by Excessive Efficiency Sport New Zealand to get anyplace shut. When she certified in February, she briefly ended atop the 2026 World Aquatics 50m butterfly rankings.
“I came upon I used to be world primary when Amanda White [ Swimming New Zealand staffer] advised me. I believed, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that, that’s actually cool, that’s superior.’ I don’t actually have a look at rankings,” she remembers.
“The intention was to go in and qualify. It wasn’t an enormous celebratory factor, it was extra like an ‘oh, thank God’.”
Now a possible medallist in 50m butterfly and ranked third within the Commonwealth up to now this yr after most international locations trials for Glasgow have concluded, Ouwehand is gunning for gold.
Her lifetime greatest is faster than her February season greatest. Ought to she achieve success, she is going to be part of simply six Kiwi wahine swimmers who’ve gained gold, and shall be simply the second since Anna Simcic gained two backstroke golds 36 years in the past.
However racing a one-length 50m dash occasion leaves no room for error.
“It’s going to be tight, yeah,” Ouwehand says. “Clearly, the plan is to be in prime situation for that one. Each teeny tiny little element issues. I reckon it is going to be a superb race with Perkins, Erin Gallagher, and myself.”
Alexandria Perkins, this season’s prime ranked Commonwealth swimmer, has her Australian trials in June. Nevertheless, ought to one other Kiwi, teenager Zoe Pedersen, hit her straps at trials, she might be within the combine. She is the 50m butterfly world junior champion. Her lifetime greatest is identical time as Gallagher clocked finally week’s South African trials; 25.63s.
Regardless of her means to clock near or beneath lifetime bests a number of occasions over latest years, Ouwehand is all the time in search of methods to enhance. One massive change she has made is on her begin off the blocks, which have to be ironed out additional earlier than stepping on the blocks in Glasgow.
“I’m continuously attempting to work on my begin, significantly the dive. It’s one thing I’ve been engaged on for months,” she says. “Within the final two years my dive has modified tremendously. I used to have my proper foot ahead on the blocks. I’ve my left foot ahead now as a result of my proper leg is my stronger leg, in order that’s on the again on the kicker. For some time that felt alien.”
This week’s nationwide championships in Auckland is the ultimate alternative for Ouwehand to good that dive in her makes an attempt to satisfy that 100m butterfly qualifying mark for the Video games. She says she is eager to decrease her 50m season greatest too, after perfecting her acceleration off the again kickplate on the blocks, and, extra importantly, go on to kick some severe ass in Glasgow after bypassing final yr’s world championships in Singapore. Her lifetime greatest there would have medalled, however she remained in New Zealand to concentrate on a coaching block for Glasgow.
“I’d prefer to get the 100m butterfly time for my peace of thoughts; however even when I don’t get it, I’ll nearly actually have permission to swim it anyway,” she says.
Final yr Ouwehand was awarded a $30,000 Yvette Williams scholarship. This scholarship assists athletes who show each distinctive expertise and wish and display laborious work and dedication to excel of their chosen sport.
In 1952, Williams (later Dame Yvette Corlett) was the primary girl to win Olympic gold for New Zealand. The scholarship was established in 2013 by way of a $500,000 reward from Sir Owen Glenn by way of the Glenn Household Basis and is run by the New Zealand Olympic Committee which additionally selects Commonwealth Video games groups.
The scholarship, which extends till the Commonwealth Video games, has assisted Ouwehand with prices related to altitude coaching within the USA and China this yr.
“The scholarship is nice. If I didn’t have it, I’d not have gone to China and I could not have gotten to altitude coaching in America, or to the World Cup collection in Canada final yr,” Ouwehand days.
Ouwehand can even reapply for the scholarship after Glasgow, for the next two years main as much as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. She says a profitable utility will rely on outcomes on the Commonwealth Video games, “however what they’re basically saying is that if I win a gold medal then I’m going to have a greater probability – that’s sort of what they’re in search of – which is the entire objective of the scholarship, anyway.”
Auckland accountancy agency Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, the place Ouwehand has labored since 2021, is especially supportive of her swimming.
“They’ve supported my swimming ever since I began working there nearly 5 years in the past,” she says. “They permit me the power to take break day to go to those competitions. It’s extremely uncommon to seek out company employers who enable younger working professionals to work half time and proceed to pursue their sporting endeavours.”
Whereas Ouwehand is of course aggressive, she acknowledges that as a consequence of her concentrate on swimming, a few of her workmates who began concurrently her are at the moment one or two ranges her senior, as they work full time.
“It’s taken me longer to go up every degree. I’ve on a regular basis on this planet to maneuver up the ranks, however I solely have a restricted window for my swimming – and that’s the focus now,” she says.
“I’m very conscious that my swimming profession has a restricted life, however I can work till I’m 65 or 70 if I would like.”
*Ouwehand and Pedersen swim the 50m butterfly on Wednesday morning, day one of many nationwide champs in Auckland.
