Olympic champions Kyle Chalmers (Marion, SA) and Kaylee McKeown (Griffith University, QLD) have taken turns to light up the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre on night two of the 2023 Sydney Open and UNISPORT Nationals.
First up it was McKeown who followed her opening night Australian All-Comers record in the 200IM with the second fastest time in the world this year in the 400 IM – clocking a personal best time of 4:31.68 – just over a second outside Stephanie Rice’s 2008 Australian record.
Only Canada’s teenage super star Summer McIntosh has been faster this year and that was her world record swim of 4:25.87.
And then it was sprint king Kyle who turned on the afterburners - clocking the third fastest time in the world this year, stopping the clock at 47.69 – his fastest “in season” time – and under 48 seconds.
Chalmers was out in 22.97 and back in 24.72 to beat fellow Commonwealth Games relay gold medallist Flynn Southam (Bond University, QLD) 48.98, New Zealand’s Cameron Gray (Coast, NZ) 49.45, Germany’s Josha Salchow 49.63 and Chalmers training partner Matthew Temple (Marion, SA) 49.78.
Chalmers now sits behind rankings leaders China’s Zhanle Pan (47.22) and Romania’s world record holder David Popovici (47.61) as the World Championships await.
“I’ve been 48.00 seconds twice this year and tonight I set myself a target to go under, but I didn’t think I’d dip that far under, that’s a massive win for me,” said an elated Chalmers.
“That’s probably the fastest I’ve swum ‘in season’ in a very long time. Normally at this time of the year I don’t race and I’m in a massive hole so it’s nice to be racing and it’s nice to be racing fast, (as you can tell) I’m very happy with that swim.”
Before long it was McKeown who was back in the water showing her wares off again, this time in her specialist 100m backstroke, clocking a slick 58.33 – a time only herself (the world rankings leader on 57.84) and US rival Regan Smith (57.90) have bettered.
Meanwhile, rising New Zealand teenager Erika Fairweather continued to reinforce her enormous potential, adding the 200m freestyle with a powerful backend to take the win in 1.55.80 (57.24) – a time just outside her best of 1:55.44 – which ranks her sixth in the world.
Fairweather edged in front on the final turn to swim away with the win from early leader Madison Wilson(Marion, SA) 1:56.71 with Lani Pallister (Griffith University, QLD) 1:57.35 third.
The men’s 200m butterfly saw Commonwealth Games representative Bowen Gough (Griffith University, QLD) hold on, getting to the wall in 1:57.94 ahead of the fast finishing William Petric (Nunawading, VIC) 1:59.23 and Harrison Turner (Chandler, QLD) 1:59.48.
SOPAC’s Matthew Galea scored an impressive 800m freestyle win in 8:02.14 from Thomas Hauck (All Saints, QLD) 8:05.86 and Zac Reid (Neptune, NZ) 8:11.56.
The women’s 1500m freestyle went to Carlile’s Tokyo Olympian Madeleine Gough, representing Bond University, QLD in 16:12.69 from her fellow Australian open water representative for this year’s World Championships, Yeronga Park’s Chelsea Gubecka (Uni of QLD) 16:34.72 with Tayla Martin (Carlile, NSW) third in 17:03.47.
While in Multi-Class action it was Blacktown’s world record breaking Paralympian Timothy Hodge (Western Sydney University, NSW) who was amongst the winners, taking out the men’s 400m freestyle in 4:18:56.
Hodge was joined by Katja Dedekind (Griffith University, QLD) who won the women’s 50 and 400m freestyle double in 27.71 and 4:38.27 respectively; Keira Stephens (Southport, QLD) the women’s 100m breaststroke in 1:16.83; Jake Michel (Carina Leagues, CJs) the men’s 100m breaststroke in 1:06.02 and Tom Gallagher(Somerset, QLD) the men’s 50m freestyle in 23.75.
And Bond’s Ben Armbruster (25.49) cracked the club and University Championship double in the men’s 50m backstroke from Bradley Woodward (Western Sydney University, NSW) 25.61 and New Zealand visitor Andrew Jeffcoat (Club 37, NZ) 25.73.
