2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES
- Friday, July 29 – Wednesday, August 3, 2022
- Birmingham, England
- Sandwell Aquatic Center
- Start Times
- Prelims: 10:30 am local / 5:30 am ET
- Finals: 7:00 pm local / 2:00 pm ET
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Event Schedule
- Entry List (PDF)
- Live Results
Men’s 50 Fly Finals Qualifiers
- Ben Proud (ENG), 23.06
- Tzen Wei Teong (SGP), 23.24
- Dylan Carter (TTO), 23.41
- Jacob Peters (ENG) / Josh Liendo (CAN), 23.51
- –
- Lewis Fraser (WAL), 23.56
- Cameron Gray (NZL), 23.58
- Adam Barrett (ENG), 23.59
It was an unfamiliar sight during the men’s 50 fly–for the first time in 8 years, Australia will not have a finalist in a Commonwealth Games event.
Australia had Matt Temple, Kyle Chalmers, and Cody Simpson swim the event. All three made it to the semifinals, but failed to make it any further. Temple was the closest to the final, finishing ninth in 23.63. Chalmers finished just behind in 10th, with Simpson taking 14th in 23.87.
In the last 24 years–which is as far back as full Commonwealth Games results are readily available–we could only identify two occasions where this happened to Australia. The most recent occasion was in 2014, when they only had Christian Sprenger in the 100 breast. Sprenger, the 2010 silver medalist, finished 10th.
The prior time it happened was in the women’s 50 free in 1998. Australia had two entrants, but neither one made the final. This is a far cry from the women’s 50 free in 2022, where Australia has controlled the top three spots all the way through the rounds.
The occasion is so unexpected because Australia is by far the dominant swimming entity at the Commonwealth Games. Through the 2018 Games, Australia had won 733 total medals, which is almost double the count of the next-best country England (376). Australia’s 305 gold medals is even more dominant, ahead of 105 for England and 101 for Canada.
That dominance has grown even bigger in recent years. In 2018, Australia had 28 gold medals and 73 total medals. England was 2nd in both categories with 9 and 24, respectively.
Though they missed out on this final, internally the race for spots in butterfly events is heating up in Australia. With Temple, Simpson, Chalmers, and Shuan Champion, the 100 fly at 2024 Australian Olympic Trials already projects to be brutal.
Through only a day and a half of competition, we’ve gotten used to seeing Australia dominate the podium, headlined by sweeps in the men’s 400 free and women’s 200 free. In the 50 fly, it will instead by England who got all three of their entrants into the big heat. Ben Proud was the top seed, with Jacob Peters tying for fourth and Adam Barrett sneaking in eighth. It was Proud who won the event, grabbing his fourth individual Commonwealth gold in a Games record.
Why is this even a story? Did anyone with a brain expect an Aussie to make the final in this? They were (like most other AUS 50m swimmers) only entered in this event since they were already qualified in other events.
Australia doesn’t rate/fund performances in non-Olympic events so why would anyone care?
If none of them make the 100fly final – that may be worthy of a story.
Why are all of the Australians on this site 1) so sensitive and 2) so consistently angry? Y’all gotta relax. The article explains why it’s interesting. If you’re asking “why is this a story” it’s not because you don’t think it’s interesting, it’s because you’re mad that it happened.
Also – Kyle Chalmers went 23.21 at Trials…and you think expecting him to 23.5 here requires one to “not have a brain”? Bruv.
Not so much sensitive as laughing that this is even some kind of headline story.. Swimswam should be an actual news site about the sport rather than some kind of click-bait fake news outlet.
Kyle’s 23.21 had nothing to do with him qualifying for this event – it was his 100m fly time that got him on the team and – as a bonus or warm-up race – this event. I’d still rather not see him swimming fly however. A better headline story might have been ‘why is King Kyle even swimming fly?’ – would have been much more interesting and news-worthy I’m sure.