2017 AUSTRALIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Sunday, April 9th – Thursday, April 13th
- Brisbane Aquatic Centre
- Prelims at 11am local/Finals at 7:30pm local
- LCM
- Aussie Worlds Selection Criteria Analysis
- Meet Site
- Entry List
An initial review of the 2017 Australian Swimming Championships entry lists doesn’t reveal any surprises, as the athletes expected to attend are included, while the athletes opting out of the meet are absent. Two-time World Champion James Magnussen announced earlier this year he’d be electing not to compete in Brisbane, as did 2016 Olympic silver medalist Tamsin Cook and Olympic finalist Thomas Fraser-Holmes.
200m butterfly silver medalist in Rio, Maddie Groves is training in the U.S. and also not competing. Then there’s megastar Cate Campbell, who, even though she’s competing at the national championship meet, has removed herself from selection from the Dolphins roster for Budapest.
Nevertheless, the entry lists are stacked with Aussie talent, who typically show up big time on their home turf to rattle the world rankings. Double world champion and Olympic silver medalist Mitch Larkin is ready-to-go in the men’s backstroke, as is his Olympian girlfriend Emily Seebohm. Along with her bread-and-butter backstroke events, Seebohm is taking on the 50m butterfly, 100m freestyle and 200m IM races, the latter of which she swam quite often before narrowing in on just backstroke prior to the 2016 Olympics.
Coming off of two surgeries, one in December to address endometriosis and another more recently to remove wisdom teeth, 24-year-old Seebohm returned to tracing in New Zealand last month, but Brisbane will mark her first high-profile competition back in the pool.
The Campbell sisters will be out in full force, with Bronte taking on the 50m/100m freestyle and sister Cate adding the 200m freestyle to that same line-up. Last month at the NSW State Open Championships, Cate Campbell quietly threw down a best time in the 200m freestyle, clocking a mark of 1:58.21. She’ll look to improve upon that outing without the pressure of trying to obtain a spot on the Budapest roster for the green and gold.
Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers is sticking just to the 100m and 200m freestyles, forgoing the 50m splash n’ dash. Cameron McEvoy is pulling the treble, however, trying to repeat as national title holder across the 50m/100m/200m freestyle races for a 2nd year in a row.
Veteran racers Emma McKeon, Daniel Smith and David Morgan will mingle with the likes of newcomers Kaylee McKeown, Brayden McCarthy, Jack Cartwright and Jacob Vincent to keep spectators guessing as to who will step up and score their spot to represent Australia at the 2017 World Championships.
AUS QUALIFICATION STANDARDS https://www.swimming.org.au/Assets/Selection-criteria/2017-World-Champs-Selection-Criteria-Athlete-FINAL.aspx
TBH, quite soft standards by 2016 international standards however I can see a number of events (esp M BRS/FLY/IM & W400IM/200BRS) where its no certainty of one qualifier let alone two.
AUS Swimming has largely been in somewhat of a post Rio torpor with performances being distinctly muted throughout the AUS season. Whilst it is customary to see a percentage of post Olympic retirements (which have occured) and some swimmers to take somewhat of a break; customarily we have usually seen others use disappointment as an impetus and also new names to start making their presence felt.
Apart from Matthew Wilson’s 2.09.6 200BRS and, to a lesser degree Shayna Jack’s 54.11 100FR, there has been nothing really of note performance wise from the “next generation” and nothing exceptional from Rio squad. Whilst one should expect respectable times in at least some events at this meet; most events look distinctly shallow… Read more »
Well on the bright side Australia will probably be the only country with strong medal contenders in every men’s freestyle race. Something the US can probably no longer say with the retirement of Jaeger even though many of us are hopeful that Smith can step up a bit to a new level internationally.