The New Zealand Olympic Committee on Thursday said one of their men's relay swim teams has made it to the Beijing Olympics.
The team of Cameron Gibson, William Benson, Mark Herring and Orinoco Faamausili-Banse officially qualified for the men's 4x100m freestyle relay on Thursday.
They have been confirmed by the world body FINA as one of the four fastest counties to fill the remaining four places in the 16-strong relay for Beijing when the qualifying period finished on Wednesday.
The 12 fastest nations from the world championships automatically qualified for Beijing with the four fastest non-qualifiers until June 30 making up the remaining places.
The New Zealand quartet produced a New Zealand record of 3:17.45 at the Olympic trials with Russia, the Netherlands and China. The New Zealanders were nearly one second faster than the next fastest Croatia to be 16th overall.
The 12 countries automatically through to Beijing are world champions the United States, Italy, France, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Japan.
This brings the New Zealand swim team in the Olympic pool to 15 with seven swimmers in individual events along with the women's 4x200m freestyle relay and men's 4x100m freestyle and medley relays.
(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2008)