2017 AUSTRALIAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS – Para Events
- Sunday, April 9th – Thursday, April 13th
- Brisbane Aquatic Centre
- Prelims at 11am local/Finals at 7:30pm local
- LCM
- Multi-Class racing
- Meet Site
- Entry List
- Qualification Criteria
- Meet Preview
- Live Streaming
- Live Results
Editor’s note: Australia’s para-swimmers are competing in multi-class events this weekend. That means that the swimmer who touches first, in the fastest time, is not necessarily the event champion. Instead, results are standardized relative to the athletes’ classes and assigned a point value. Swims with the highest point values win.
Australia’s darling of the 2015 IPC World Championships 2016 Paralympic Games Tiffany Thomas Kane is now a relative veteran at just 15 years old, and picked up a win on Sunday evening in the first final (para or otherwise) of the 2017 Australian Swimming Championships.
Her final time was 1:37.92, which sits about 3 seconds from her SB6 World Record. It was still good enough for a 912 point swim though – the only 900-point swim of the field in the women’s 100 breaststroke.
The men’s race went to Ahmed Kelly in 1:52.02 for 945 points, who defended his title from last season, albeit a second-and-a-half slower.
In true Australian fashion, the highest-scoring points of the night came in the freestyle races, which combined saw 7 of the day’s 9 swims over 900 points. 6-time Olympic medalist Lakeisha Patterson won the women’s 100 free in 1:05.67 – just a second short of countrymate Maddison Elliott’s S8 World Record in the event. Elliott took 3rd in Sunday’s race in 1:06.29 (930 points), and the two rank 1 and 2 in the S8 class in the world so far this year.
Daniel Fox won the men’s 100 free, swimming a 54.03. While the top 5 finishers were all spanned by a mere 4 seconds, Fox’s swim at 971 points won the race over Jack Ireland’s 54.54 (944 points). Joshua Alford (55.33 – 904 points) and Rowan Crothers‘ 52.63 (903 points) rounded out the top 4.