A shoulder and hip injury could not stop Greerton's Nathan Capp from breaking Dean Kent's longstanding 400 individual medley record and booking a world championship spot in the process.

Overnight at the New Zealand Open Championships in Auckland, Capp joined nine other Kiwi swimmers to qualify for the upcoming championships in Kazan, Russia.

Greerton swimmer Nathan Capp. Photo: File.

Capp and 15-year-old Bobbi Gichard add to the six swimmers through on the opening night and Kane Radford and Charlotte Webby, who have already secured their places in the 10km open water swim in August.

The early attention was in the 400m individual medley, where Capp clocked 4:17.72 to be 1.5 seconds under the qualifying standard and also took half-a-second off Dean Kent's national record that has stood since 2006.

He finished ahead of the 200m individual medley qualifier Bradlee Ashby (Waikato) in 4:21.36 and Andrew Trembath (Otago) in 4:34.08.

Heading into the event, Capp admits he wasn't confident about his chances, after suffering injuries this summer and focussing on his chances in the 1500m freestyle, where he is the national record holder in both long and short course.

'I felt good,” he says. 'I needed to pace myself because Bradlee [Ashby] is probably the best fly [butterfly] swimmer over 100m in the country right now.

'To qualify is great, but to break Dean's record is really special. I have held him in such high esteem all of my career so to have his record is incredible.”

Capp came back later in the meet to win the 800m freestyle in 7:58.30, nearly five seconds inside the previous New Zealand record set by Dylan Dunlop-Barrett.

It made it a superb night for the Tauranga swimmer who will target the 1500m freestyle with confidence.

Rising star Gichard became the eighth swimmer this week to qualify in the pool when she took out the women's 100m backstroke.

The Youth Olympic medallist was locked in a battle with fellow 15-year-old rising star Gabrielle Fa'amausili (Roskill) in the 100m backstroke final, with both chasing qualification to their first open world championships.

Fa'amausili led through the turn but Gichard edged her in the final 10m to win in 1:01.46, and while 24/100ths of a second outside the FINA A qualification, she was well inside the qualifying time for development swimmers and as the winner, will earn a place in the world championships' team.

'I could not have got here without the help of my coach, my strength and conditioning coach, my club and my family,” she says. 'It's incredible.

'I really wanted that FINA A time and that will be my focus now - to go to the world championships and go under the 1:01 barrier.”

The para-swimmers, chasing qualification for the IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow in July, added two further qualifying swims.

Sophie Pascoe was timed at 1:07.30 in the 100m backstroke S10, which was five seconds inside the qualifying mark, while North Shore's Rebecca Dubber was three seconds under her qualifying time for the S7 category in the same event.

Pascoe has now qualified for three events and Dubber two, with six para-swimmers qualifying in 10 events so far.