As Kyle Chalmers and Jess Stenson (nee Trengove) were honoured at the South Australian Sports Institute awards night, both were in the USA achieving impressive results in the pool and on the streets of New York to highlight the weekend action in Olympic sports.
Swimming, Athletics, Cycling - Track
Six-time Olympic medallist Kyle Chalmers, dual-Olympian Jess Stenson and junior track cycling world champions Maxwell Liebeknecht and Dylan Stanton took out major awards at the annual South Australian Sports Institute (SASI) Awards night.
Kyle and Jess won the Male and Female Athlete of the Year awards respectively, with Maxwell and Dylan sharing the Junior Male Athlete of the Year title.
Kyle’s major highlight came at the FINA World Championships in Budapest where he was part of the world-record breaking men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team. At the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games the 24-year-old collected three gold medals (4x100m freestyle relay, 100m freestyle, mixed 4x100m freestyle relay) and silver in the men’s 4x100m medley relay.
While this weekend just gone the best of Kyle Chalmers was also on display in the 100m freestyle at the short course World Cup in Indianapolis, where he won the event for the seventh consecutive time.
Gold for Jess in the women’s marathon at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games was the best moment of her year, after finishing with bronze twice in 2014 and 2018.
She too is currently on the other side of the world having just competed in the New York marathon, finishing 9th in a time of 2:27.27.
For Maxwell and Dylan, it was their effort with Ryan Elliott in the men’s team sprint at the CI Junior Track World Championships in Israel that led to them becoming junior world champions and the SASI Junior Athletes of the Year.
The young Australians beat Germany to the gold in a junior national record time of 44.538 seconds.
Coach Peter Bishop – who works with Tokyo 2020 Olympic swimming medallists Madi Wilson, Meg Harris, Kyle Chalmers, Matt Temple and Zac Incerti – took out the Coach of the Year award.
Rugby 7s
Australia’s defence of their World 7s Series title has gotten off to an electric start by defeating Fiji 20-17 in the Hong Kong final.
The win carries extra significance for the Aussies, as it’s the first time they’ve won the Sevens in Hong Kong since 1988 – doing so against the Olympic champions, Fiji, that had won the last five editions of the Hong Kong Sevens.
Being the last team standing in Hong Kong showed the resilience of the men’s Aussie 7s side. In the quarter-finals against Ireland they fell behind by 14 points and had two players off the field with yellow cards, but managed to pull out a 26-19 victory.
In the semi-finals France gave them all they could handle. Scores were locked with only seconds remaining when Maurice Longbottom stepped up to landed a penalty kick to send the world champs into the final.
Fiji raced out to a 12-0 lead in the final, but the Aussies rallied one more time and outscored them 20-5 the rest of the way.
The World Series shifts to Dubai, UAE from 2-3 December for the opening leg of the women’s sevens and round two of the men’s sevens.
Gymnastics
Tokyo 2020 Olympian Tyson Bull competed at the World Gymnastics Championships in the horizontal bar final overnight in Liverpool, UK.
He placed 8th in the final, finishing on a score of 13.766 (5.900 for difficulty and 7.866 for execution).
Earlier in the week Georgia Godwin competed in her third career world championships individual all-around final, placing 12th with a 52.669. In the same event Romi Brown made her world championships debut, finishing 23rd on 49.265.
Water Polo
The Stingers used a superb second-half performance against Canada to win 12-10 on Saturday night at the FINA World League Super Finals, which set up a fifth-place playoff against Italy.
Beating Italy proved to be a very tough assignment, as the Aussies fell short 13-11 and finished sixth overall at the last major international tournament of the year.
Sailing
Olympic gold medallist Tom Slingsby has won the Australian Sailing Male Athlete of the Year award for a record-equalling fifth time, joining Mat Belcher – on a night which had four sailors inducted into the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame.
Tom’s outstanding year has also been recognised by World Sailing, as he took out the World Sailing Male Sailor of the Year honour.
He dominated with significant victories in multiple classes, including leading the Australian SailGP team to their second consecutive SailGP championship, winning his second-consecutive Moth World Championship and Helming Commanche to a monohull race record in the Middle Sea race.
“So many people I look up to in sailing have won this award and I’m just so proud to be able travel the world representing Australia on the world stage,” Tom said.
“I’m incredibly proud of the Australia SailGP team for everything we’ve achieved and continue to achieve, and hope that we’re representing our country and every Australian sailor in good light.”
Mara Stransky, currently ranked third in the world in the ILCA 6 class, won the Australian Sailing Female Sailor of the Year.
Her 2022 highlights include a win at Kiel Week, along with top-10 finishes at the World Championships, Hyeres Olympic Week and the Allianz World Cup Almere regattas.
470 class Olympic champions Mat Blecher, Tom King and Mark Turnbull were inducted into the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame.
Mat is Australia's most successful Olympic sailor of all-time, with two Olympic gold (London 2012, Tokyo 2020) and one silver (Rio 2016). He then closed his Olympic career by carrying the Australian flag at the Tokyo 2020 Closing Ceremony.
Tom and Mark sailed to victory in front of a home crowd at Sydney 2000, in what was Australia's first Olympic gold medal in sailing in almost thirty years.
