TELSTRA DOLPHINS CONTINUE GOLDEN RUN IN GUAM

GUAM, January 10: Australia's Telstra Dolphins Australian Swim Team extended their gold medal total to six with three more stunning victories on night two of the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships at the Leo Palace Resort Aquatic complex here. IAN HANSON reports.....

Leading the charge were Ellen Fullerton and Ryan Napoleon who broke through for well deserved individual gold medals when they landed the 400 metres freestyle double.

Then Napoleon grabbed his third gold medal of the meet when he combined with Tommaso D'Orsogna, Hayden McEvoy and Daniel Smith to set a new Junior Pan Pacific meet record in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay.

In the men's 400m freestyle final, Napoleon's St Peters Western team mate from Brisbane Ned McKendry made it a 1-2 finish for the Telstra Dolphins.

Fullerton, who has claimed two close-up silvers in the 200 metres freestyle and 400m individual medley behind US star Dagny Knutson, fought hard to overtake American Andrea Taylor to win the women's event in a personal best time of 4 mins 11.00 seconds.

The pair swam stroke-for-stroke for almost the entire race, with Taylor leading by 0.01 at both the 200 and 300m marks but a superb final 100 from Fullerton sealed the victory for the Denis Cotterell coached all-rounder from Pro-Ma Miami on the Gold Coast.

"I could see Andrea moving on every turn and knew I had to bring it home as hard as I could over the final stages," said an elated Fullerton.

Napoleon, who spearheaded the Dolphins to a record-breaking 4x200m freestyle relay victory on night two, continued on his record breaking ways, clocking 3:51.12, a new Junior Pan Pacific record - 0.44 faster than Australian Nic Donald clocked in Maui in 2007.

McKendry, swimming in lane one, clocked a massive personal best of 3:54.70 to give the Australians their second quinella of the meet.

D'Orsogna, who won the individual 100m last night, led off the fired up Australian foursome in 49.87 and McEvoy exploded off the blocks to split 50.28, before handing over to Napoleon, who clocked 50.05 before Smith anchored the young Telstra Dolphins home in 49.52.

It took 1.66 secs off the previous record, set in 2005 by an Australian team that included three Beijing Olympians Kenrick Monk, Kirk Palmer and Andrew Lauterstein, along with Andrew Thompson.

The women's 4x100m freestyle relay team of Brittany Elmslie (56.32), Fullerton (56.37) Tiffany Papaemanouil (56.05) and Ellese Zalewski (55.68) finished with a close up bronze medal behind the USA and Canada.

Meanwhile NSW Junior Commonwealth Games champion Lachlan Staples added another silver to his collection, in the 100m butterfly, after his second place in the 200m butterfly.

Staples, coached by former World Championship swimmer Zane King, clocked a personal best time of 53.21, behind New Zealand Olympian Daniel Bell (52.37), with Australia's Jayden Hadler fourth also in personal best of 53.53.

In other results:

BELINDA Bennett clocked a personal best time of 4:16.09 to finished fifth in the women's 400m freestyle and Blair Evans also clocked a personal best to finished in the B final in 4:15.29.

THOMAS Fraser-Holmes clocked a personal best of 3:56.02 to win the B final in the men's 400m freestyle.

AMY Smith (1:00.56) and Jessica Ash (1:01.11) were a close up fourth and seventh in the women's 100m butterfly, while Zalewski was third in the B final in 1:03.05.

JENI O'Neil clocked a personal best of 2:16.37 to finish fifth in the women's 200m backstroke, with Bridgette-Rose Taylor sixth (2:17.05) and Grace Loh, clocked a personal bets of 2:16.05 to finish fourth in the B final, while:

JARED Goldthorpe finished fifth in 2:02.11 in the men's 200m backstroke and Alex Kelshaw second in the B final in 2:03.23.

The Dolphins have now won six gold, 10 silver and four bronze medals and trail the USA by four points going into the final day.