Stubblety-Cook To Show His Early 2020 Hand At Victorian Open C’ships

2020 VICTORIAN OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, February 14th – Sunday, February 16th
• Incorporating the 2020 World Para Swimming World Series
• Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre (MSAC)
• 50m (LCM)
• Psych Sheet

The 2020 Victorian Open Championships are slated for this weekend in Melbourne, with 64 events ready to be contested over Friday, February 14th through Sunday, February 16th.

As with the 2019 edition of the meet, this year’s affair will be incorporating the Melbourne 2020 World Para Swimming World Series event. Fans will get to see the likes of Rowan Cr0thers and Sophie Pascoe take to the MSAC pool throughout the meet.

In terms of the able-bodied swimmers, Mack Horton is set to make 3 appearances across the 100m, 400m and 800m freestyle events, while Jack McLoughlin will be joining him in the latter 2 races.

TSS Aquatics Cameron McEvoy is set to make his presence known, as will fellow 2019 World Championships squadmates David Morgan, Matthew Temple and Zac Stubblety-Cook.

21-year-old Stubblety-Cook is an especially intriguing racer to watch in the men’s 200m breaststroke event, seeing how he became the world’s 7th fastest performer of all-time last year. Competing at the Queensland Championships in December, the Chandler man threw down a monster 2:07.28 to take gold there and throw his name in the ring of potential Olympic contenders.

With the target on his back entering the final months until Australian Trials, we’ll see what Stubblety-Cook will produce in light of Japanese swimmer Shoma Sato’s 2:07.58 and Ippei Watanabe’s 2:07.86 already produced in 2020.

Young Aussie standouts Gabriella Peiniger, Se-Bom Lee and Brendon Smith are also ready to get some racing in before April’s Australian National Championships.

Foreign talent will also be sprinkled throughout the competition, with Vic Open racing mainstay Welson Sim of Malaysia joined by Czech veteran Barbora Zavadova and a host of New Zealand talent. Among the Kiwis are national record holders Helena Gasson, Bradlee Ashby and Erika Fairweather.

Not to be missed are the dynamic duo of Jacob Whittle and Mia Slevin, both visiting from Great Britain. They’re among the Derventio Excel team members set to compete down under this weekend, with 15-year-old Whittle entered in the 50m fly and 100m free, while Slevin is scheduled to swim the 100m and 400m free.