2016 SOUTH AUSTRALIAN LONG COURSE STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, January 20th – Saturday, January 23rd
- Prelims at 9am local (5:30pm previous night Eastern); Finals at 5pm local (1:30am Eastern)
- SA Aquatics & Leisure Center, Oaklands Park, Australia
- Event Schedule and Timing
- SA Champs Entry List
- Meet Preview
- Day 1 Recap
- Live Results
After a subdued day of racing at the SA Aquatic & Leisure Center, young stud Kyle Chalmers stepped things up a notch during the 2nd finals session at the 2016 South Australian State Championships.
Chalmers clocked the field’s only sub-50-second freestyle, registering a mark of 49.30 to claim gold in the 17-18 age group. Yesterday, Chalmers scored a 50 freestyle victory of 23.56, well off his usual sub-23-outings, so it was reassuring to see the sprinting prodigy touch the wall in a sub-50 mark today.
49.30 is a swift in-season mark for the 17-year-old, who earned the World Junior Championship title in the event in Singapore last summer, claiming a new championship record of 48.47 in the process. That was after having logged a 47.68 anchor split on his squad’s silver medal-winning 400m medley relay at the same meet, so the dude has major speed. Chalmers will need it to compete against the likes of countrymen Cameron McEvoy and James Magnussen come Australian Olympic Trials in April.
Winning the 19 & Over grouping of the 100m freestyle in Oaks Park today was Chalmers’ Marion Swim Club teammate Andrew Abood, who doubled up on his 50m freestyle victory from day 1 with a 50.97 winning 100 free today.
Another Marion swimmer got the job done on the women’s side, with 30-year-old Sally Hunter taking the win in the 100m breaststroke race. 1:08.61 was Hunter’s winning time to score the only sub-1:10 mark of the field. She’ll try to double up on that win tomorrow with the 50m distance.
Chalmers is slated to swim the 50m backstroke and 200m IM events tomorrow, day 3 of the meet.
