Adelaide’s Olympic Champion Kyle Chalmers thrilled his home crowd at the SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre on night two of the 2019 Australian Swimming Championships, claiming back-to-back Men’s 100m Freestyle titles and beating his Rio 2016 gold-medal-winning time.
SWIMMING: Adelaide’s Olympic Champion Kyle Chalmers thrilled his home crowd at the SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre on night two of the 2019 Australian Swimming Championships, claiming back-to-back Men’s 100m Freestyle titles and beating his Rio 2016 gold-medal-winning time.
The 20-year-old stunningly improved on his gold-medal-winning performance at Rio (47.58), clocking a personal best of 47.48 to secure the top honour ahead of Cameron McEvoy (49.07) and Clyde Lewis (49.29).
Earlier in the night spectators witnessed another sublime swim by Matthew Wilson in the Men’s 200m Breaststroke. Touching with a time of 2:07.16, the Sydneysider set a new Commonwealth and Australian record to secure the gold in front of young gun Zac Stubblety-Cook who registered 2:08.38, and Samuel Williamson with a time of 2:13.09.
Speaking after the race, Wilson said he surprised himself with his performance.
"When I turned around and saw 2:07.16, I had no idea I could do that. I was expecting a 2:08 mid because I did that at States a couple of weeks ago and I'm probably at the same point in my training, so to pull that out was just unbelievable," he explained.
"We've got World Trials coming up in June so if I can repeat that, I'm definitely a shot at hopefully medalling at Worlds and then obviously coming up to Tokyo Trials next year."
Olympian Emma McKeon held off a fast-finishing Brianna Throssell to capture the gold in the Women’s 100m Butterfly. Going head-to-head in lanes four and five, Throssell pushed McKeon all the way to the end with McKeon touching in 56.85 and Throssell in 57.52. Alice Stuart placed third in a time of 59.97.
Queensland school-girl and Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Champion, Kaylee McKeown, claimed the Women’s 400m Individual Medley national title in 4:40.88, beating out Calypso Sheridan and Blair Evans, who secured the silver and bronze respectively in 4:41.40 and 4:41.97.
Claiming his first national title, William Yang took home gold in the Men’s 50m Butterfly clocking in at 23.23 – adding to the silver he won in the Men’s 100m Backstroke on night one. Cameron Jones grabbed the silver in 23.63 and Shaun Champion the bronze in 24.01.
After placing second in the Men’s 400m Freestyle last night, Jack McLoughlin was able to stand atop of the podium on Monday evening – victorious in the Men’s 800m Freestyle in 7:58.66. He had some hot competition from Josh Parrish (7:59.83) and Ben Roberts (8:01.22).
States and clubs truly tussled it out in the final event of the night, with St Peters Western (Ariarne Titmus, Meg Harris, Abbey Harkin and Shayna Jack) claiming the honour in the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay in a time of 3:36.27 in front of Knox Pymble (Claudia Neale, Eloise Riley, Bronte Campbell and Cate Campbell) in 3:42.66 and local club Marion (Brittany Elmslie, Ellysia Oldsen, Emily Liu and Madison Wilson) in 3:43.77.
View all race results HERE
