2022 AUSTRALIAN AGE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, April 13th – Monday, April 18th (able-bodied)
- SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, South Australia
- LCM (50m)
- Live Results
- Livestream: Amazon Prime
A full day’s recap post will be published shortly.
Following his huge personal best and near-national age record in the 200m freestyle for 16-year-old men yesterday, Flynn Southam cranked out another big swim at the Australian Age Championships.
Southam controlled the men’s 100m freestyle in tonight’s Adelaide final, leading from start to finish in a head-turning time of 48.60.
That not only beat the field by nearly 2 seconds, but the Bond teen’s result successfully established a new age record in the event. Southam’s 48.60 surpassed the previous historic mark of 48.69 2016 Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers put on the books as a 16-year-old in 2015.
Splits for Southam’s swim include 23.83/24.77, compared to Chalmers’ front and back half of 23.57/25.12, respectively.
After reaping the pole position out of the heats here with a sub-50 second time of 49.72, Southam found a way to hack that down by over a second to crush the new record.
Entering this meet, Southam’s personal best in this event rested at the 49.40 he popped last December at the Queensland Championships. The enormous time drop tonight put Southam under the 49-second threshold for the first time in his young career.
For perspective, just as his 200m free did yesterday, Southam’s 100m free outing here would have rendered him the new American national age record. His 48.60 is faster than multi-Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel was in the 15-16 age group. At that time, Dressel set the NAG at 49.28 in 2013.
You can refresh yourself here on Southam’s journey to date, as the teen is among our stealthy six disruptors set to potentially cause some podium shakeups at the next Olympic Games in Paris.
I think the big test will come at trials against Kyle, Zac and Matt, although if you look at Olympic trials Zac was 48.5 I think but probably improved a lot since then, interesting to see how it pans out, He should at least make the relays in both the 4×1 and 4×2
According to a coach at Bond (quoted in another article) trials is Southam’s main focus and he only had a few days rest for this meet.
Look out for the finals in 50m. He’s been knocked off top spot for the final.
Although Tane Bidios is 17 not 16
Would love to see him go sub 48 before he turns 17
My dyslexia saw “46.80” and almost had a heart attack
Go ahead and have it. Popovici was 47.3 at 16
swimmers develop at different ages u could be an incredibly quick young freestyler does not mean ull continue to develop at that rate by the time you say around 21 – 25 even although human nature dictates you will
24.7 on the 2nd 50 is the real story here. Imagine when this kid develops a bit more and gets some speed…
True, but Southam had already swum 24.7 on the second 50m: when he set his previous PB (49.40), last December at the Queensland Champs, he swam 24.62-24.78, perhaps the most equal-split 100 free under 50″ ever.
So he’s already dropped 0.8 on the first 50! Promising for his future development.
100 free is getting stacked worldwide.
When is he turning 17 ? Can he become the second 16 year old kid to go sub 48 ?
23.83/24.77 is filthy
What does Popovici come home in?
24.3