Its been an Australian Age record breaking night at the World Junior championships in Singapore. Getting in on the action has been Minna Atherton for the second time today in the 50m backstroke, Matthew Wilson in the 200m breaststroke, Tamsin Cook in the 400m freestyle and Kyle Chalmers in the 50m freestyle.
Current World Champion Emily Seebohm’s training partner, Minna Atherton, kicked things off with another impressive display for the week, posting her first sub-28 second swim with a 27.92, dropping 0.08 from her morning swim and qualifying fastest through to the final. Minna will get another shot tomorrow night to see if she can drop the time even further during the best meet of her career so far and grab a clean sweep of the backstroke events. The influence of Seebohm and coach David Lush at the Brisbane Grammar School appears to be pushing MInna Atherton to new heights at these championships.
Next up on the program was the men’s 200m breaststroke and Matthew Wilson from the SOPAC swim club in Sydney – coached by former swimmer Adam Kable, collected the silver medal with a 2:11.23. The 16 year old record is held by Matthew himself, with a 2:12.83 from April of this year, and the 17 year olds record is held by Simon Cowley, former Australian representative, which stood at 2:12.98. The rise of Matthew Wilson in this event will be pleasing for Swimming Australia as its been an area where they haven’t been able to field the strength they would have liked in previous years, with the retirement of Brenton Rickard and Christian Sprenger focusing more on the 50m/100m combination.
Following these two record breaking performances, Tamsin Cook from the city of Perth, lowered her own 16 year old’s 400m freestyle record that she set at the Australian Open championships in 2015. The gold medal winning time of a 4:06.17 doubled as a Championship Record, dropping 0.13 from the previous time of 4:06.30 by Elena Sokolova of Russia which dates back to 2008. Tamsin led from the front and was never headed, turning at each 50m in first place and notching up the win by 1.30 seconds to silver medallist Sierra Schmidt of the USA.
Adelaide’s Marion Swim club member, and Australian Senior team representative, Kyle Chalmers has lit up the pool yet again at the World Junior Championships, after posting a 22.19 to win the 50m Freestyle. Whilst the swim falls short of a World Junior or a Meet Record, the swim breaks the 17 year old Australian Age Record of 22.26, which was held by the current World Silver medallist, Australian & Pan Pacific Champion, Cameron McEvoy. The swim is also a personal best from his 22.33 which he registered earlier in the year at the Australian Age Championships (which is now the 16 year old’s Australian record).
Australia have experienced a great night of personal bests, medals and record breaking performances. Looking ahead to tomorrowAustralia will go to Kyle Chalmers backing up in the 100m Freestyle, Minna Atherton to complete the treble, and the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay to lead the charge and continue the momentum gained from a successful day 4 of the World Junior Championships.