The Neptune Swim Club has five swimmers named in the 21-strong team.
Olympian Erika Fairweather (18) heads a talented crop of swimmers. She made the 400m freestyle Olympic final in Tokyo last year after smashing the New Zealand record in the heat with a time of 4min 2.28sec.
Fairweather is joined by Luan Grobbelaar (20), Esme Paterson (21), Ruby Heath (22) and Caitlin Deans (22).
Deans said it was an amazing achievement to have so many swimmers from one club compete at a world tournament.
"I think the secret is pretty simple," she said.
"It is just some good coaching and hard work, really."
Deans certainly puts in the work.
She is studying a bachelor of science majoring in physiology. That is a full plate on its own, but she is hungry to do well in the pool as well as in the class.
The group does nine pool sessions a week.
"We are in the door at 5am in the morning and we are in the water from about 5.30am to about 7.15am and then back in the afternoon," she said.
It is a punishing schedule. Sunday is the only full day off.
"You don’t even have to think about falling asleep," Deans said.
Having so many other strong swimmers at the club was a "massive" help.
"We’ve created a really good environment and we all push each other."
Deans will compete in the 1500m freestyle and is in top form. She swam a personal best at the nationals in Auckland in April and finished a respectable 13th at the world championships in Hungary in July.
They were both long-course events but her times were coming down.
The next target was to swim under 16 minutes for the 1500m in the short course.
"I’ve dropped some time in the 1500m recently and I’d love to keep on that trajectory.
"I’m really hoping to have good people alongside me who will really push me along, especially at the 1km mark when you start to get tired," she said.
She would love to crack into the top 10 in Melbourne, but the ultimate goal was to qualify for the Olympics in Paris next year and that meant trimming 18sec off her personal best time of 16min 27.34sec in the long-course.
"I think it is within my realm. I don’t think my PB really reflects what I’m capable of at the moment.
"I have not quite put a 1500m long-course race together yet that I’m 100% happy with.
"Because it is a new event for females, we are always learning how to race it every time we race it, so I think there is still a lot of room to improve and hopefully the time will drop down."
