2008 Oceania Swimming Championships

The 2008 Oceania Swimming Championships were held in New Zealand and featured competition in swimming, open water swimming and synchronized swimming. It was the 7th Oceania Swimming Championships and second time that New Zealand hosted the event after playing host to the 2000 Championships.

The open water competitions were held from 3 February to 5 February near Rotorua in Lake Okataina and Lake Rotoma whilst the swimming and synchronized swimming competitions were carried out from 5 June to 8 June in Christchurch at the QEII Leisure Centre.

Twelve of the 13 federated members of the Oceania Swimming Association competed with the Northern Mariana Islands the only member not to send any swimmers. Two associate members also attending, bringing the total to 14: the French overseas department New Caledonia and the USA State Hawaii.

The ranking sorts by the number of gold medals earned by a member federation (or associate member) of the Oceania Swimming Association. The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals. If, after the above, countries are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically. The host country, New Zealand, is highlighted in lavender. The greatest number of medals won in each medal category, gold, silver, bronze, and total, is in boldface.

A total of 38 swimming events were contested in a 50-metre pool. To give the smaller island nations a chance against the stronger swimming nations of Australia and New Zealand the championships rules stated that in the individual events only the top two qualifiers from each country progress through to the final with the third fastest swimmer only from those countries with two swimmers qualifying for the ‘A’ final permitted to swim in the ‘B’ final. In the relay events it was one medal per country. So, for example, if New Zealand 'A' finishes first, Australia 'A' finishes second, New Zealand 'B' finishes third and New Caledonia finishes fourth, New Caledonia would be awarded the bronze medal.

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