Yesterday kicked off the first day of the 2011 Aussie University Games, which is a competition pitting the country’s Universities against each other in 29 different sports. What’s really cool about this event is that schools are given an overall score, based on points accumulated by the different sports, which results in an overall university team champion. The defending top 3 are the University of Western Australia, Monash University, and the University of Sydney; none of which place too heroically in the swimming portion of the competition (though Sydney, not surprisingly, is pretty decent with a few wins on the first day). The University of Melbourne, however, is one of the dominante swimming colleges (along with the Queensland University of Technology), and placed 4th in the overall competition last year. They will be really counting on a repeat huge performance from their swimmers to put them into the top 3.
Among the bigger names in the competition was Marieke Guehrer, who has had a very busy summer. In the 50 back, she showed off against Melbourne teammate Grace Loh, and both pushed to the absolute final touch. Though the younger Loh may have been hips-ahead of Guehrer, at the end of the day it was the 6’1 Guehrer, with a 9-inch height advantage, who put her hand on the wall first in 29.05. Loh took 2nd in 29.08. For Guehrer, that time was only a tenth off of her career-best, done in 2010, though Loh has been much better this season.
Both swimmers cleared the old Meet Record, set by Guehrer in 2009 at 29.69. At the end of the day, this was a huge win for the University of Melbourne as they picked up a big 16 points from the event.
Later in the session, Guehrer would pick up her 2nd win in the 100 fly with a mark of 1:02.35. Though this is an off meet, the pure-sprint champion was probably hoping for a slightly better result (something in a 1:01 range at least) headed towards the Olympics where her specialty (the 50 fly) is not an event option.
Altogether, Melbourne took 5 out of the day’s 12 event victories, including records in the women’s 100 breaststroke, a 1:09.84 from National Teamer Sam Marshall. This race crushed a mark standing since 2000 by almost three seconds, and in the 400 medley relay, where the combination of Loh, Marshall, Guehrer, and Jessica Morrison won in 4:20.05. That gave them a 15-second margin of victory and a 10-second event win.
Amongst the other impressive swims was a 1:03.40 in the 100 breaststroke from Christian Sprenger, the former National Record holder in the race. After a disappointing semi-final exit at the World Championships, he needs to put in some serious work this year on his multi-round build and improving from one swim to the next, which he did successfully here (5 seconds better, though obviously not under the same circumstances).
Sprenger swims for the Queensland University of Technology that, alongside Melbourne on the women’s side, really dominate the men’s competition for 4 event victories.
Sprenger’s teammate Kyle Richardson took the men’s 200 free in 1:51.90, which gave him a five-plus second margin of victory. For a sprinter who will be battling tooth-and-nail for a spot on the World-Champion 400 free relay after the return of Ian Thorpe, this is a very good mark for him and just over a tenth away from his season-best time.
Lastly, Bond University’s Jade Neilsen but up a solid 2:03.46 to win the women’s 200 free.
The two dominant programs mentioned above jumped out to a big scoring lead on the first day. Melbourne, with their 5 victories, picked up a total of 99 points; but Queensland Tech stayed tight with 97 points on a much more gender-balanced roster.