Swimming Australia has released the qualifying standards for the 2015 Hancock Prospecting Australian Short Course Championships, and have left some in shock of how much tougher it will be to qualify for the country’s premier short course meters event.
Qualifying for this meet is only allowed in short course meters, unless a swimmer’s time is so fast that they’ve cleared the short course standard in a long course pool with no conversion factor (which will be true in many cases). The times for the 2014 event, however, still resembled those that one might expect for a long course meet.
A correction has been made, however, and the times have now become very tough. For example, the four 100 meter events had their average qualifying time get 1.78 seconds faster. The 100 meter races have on average gotten more than four seconds tougher to qualify for. Multiple events, including the men’s 800 free, 200 breast, 400 IM, and women’s 1500 free, have gotten tougher by over 10 seconds.
Below, we’ve crunched the numbers on the changes, and they’re quite staggering. While the old standards were quite soft, the meet was still not overwhelmed with entries, with most races seeing fewer than 50 entrants. Swimming Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This year’s meet is being held at SOPAC in Sydney, and the qualifying period began on January 1, 2014.
2015
| Men | Event | Women |
| 22.60 | 50 free | 25.85 |
| 50.00 | 100 free | 56.80 |
| 1:50.60 | 200 free | 2:03.75 |
| 3:56.30 | 400 free | 4:20.00 |
| 8:13.60 | 800 free | 8:53.50 |
| 15:46.30 | 1500 free | 17:12.00 |
| 25.50 | 50 back | 28.95 |
| 55.10 | 100 back | 1:02.20 |
| 1:59.50 | 200 back | 2:15.20 |
| 28.50 | 50 breast | 32.50 |
| 1:02.65 | 100 breast | 1:10.25 |
| 2:15.90 | 200 breast | 2:31.50 |
| 24.55 | 50 fly | 27.50 |
| 54.60 | 100 fly | 1:02.00 |
| 2:02.30 | 200 fly | 2:16.00 |
| 57.20 | 100 IM | 1:04.70 |
| 2:03.50 | 200 IM | 2:18.75 |
| 4:25.25 | 400 IM | 4:53.80 |
| 3:30.00 | 400 Free Relay | 3:52.00 |
| 7:45.00 | 800 Free Relay | 8:24.00 |
| 3:52.00 | 400 Medley Relay | 4:25.00 |
2014
| Men | Event | Women |
| 23.80 | 50 free | 26.80 |
| 51.00 | 100 free | 58.00 |
| 1:54.20 | 200 free | 2:05.00 |
| 4:00.00 | 400 free | 4:20.00 |
| 8:29.00 | 800 free | 8:55.00 |
| 15:52.00 | 1500 free | 17:28.00 |
| 27.70 | 50 back | 30.90 |
| 59.80 | 100 back | 1:05.50 |
| 2:09.00 | 200 back | 2:21.00 |
| 30.80 | 50 breast | 35.00 |
| 1:07.50 | 100 breast | 1:15.50 |
| 2:28.60 | 200 breast | 2:40.00 |
| 25.90 | 50 fly | 29.10 |
| 57.70 | 100 fly | 1:05.00 |
| 2:08.00 | 200 fly | 2:23.00 |
| 1:00.00 | 100 IM | 1:07.00 |
| 2:11.00 | 200 IM | 2:24.00 |
| 4:36.00 | 400 IM | 5:00.00 |
| 3:32.00 | 400 Free Relay | 3:56.00 |
| 7:47.00 | 800 Free Relay | 8:26.00 |
| 3:55.00 | 400 Medley Relay | 4:30.00 |
Difference
| Men | Event | Women |
| -1.20 | 50 free | -0.95 |
| -1.00 | 100 free | -1.20 |
| -3.60 | 200 free | -1.25 |
| -3.70 | 400 free | -5.00 |
| -15.40 | 800 free | -1.50 |
| -5.70 | 1500 free | -16.00 |
| -2.20 | 50 back | -1.95 |
| -4.70 | 100 back | -3.30 |
| -9.50 | 200 back | -5.80 |
| -2.30 | 50 breast | -2.50 |
| -4.85 | 100 breast | -5.25 |
| -12.70 | 200 breast | -8.50 |
| -1.45 | 50 fly | -1.60 |
| -3.10 | 100 fly | -3.00 |
| -5.70 | 200 fly | -7.00 |
| -2.80 | 100 IM | -2.30 |
| -7.50 | 200 IM | -5.25 |
| -10.75 | 400 IM | -6.20 |
| -2.00 | 400 Free Relay | -4.00 |
| -2.00 | 800 Free Relay | -2.00 |
| -3.00 | 400 Medley Relay | -5.00 |
New QT are posted now.
After revision there are minimal changes.
These times are not posted on swimming Australia’s website. Has there been confirmation that these changes are official ?
Josie – they in fact were listed on the Swimming Australia website, but have been taken down.
What is SWimming Australia’s rational???????
How does develop athelete? Or is this a bogus administration decision?
It’s false economy – fixed dollars spent to stage the event and qualifying times so way less swimmers can participate.
SAL is consistent in its tunnel vision in only resourcing the Australian Swim Team of the year not tomorrow. Look at Uni Games, SAL is taking a team to Kazan – it picked a team and is taking a team of officials and the swimmers take themselves, self funded (thanks mum and dad).
Perth cost so much due the very high ratio of officials and administrators to swimmers. Development only seems to happen in admin and officials ranks not swimmers. This is… Read more »
They may as well build a Competition specific pool in The Alice , accommodation won’t be a problem .
SAL Finances I hear are already under pressure after Perth this year which was underfunded through lack of smaller sponsors. This will put the funding situation deeper in the red.
Great way to encourage the decline in numbers sticking with the sport .
I don’t quite understand the logic. There are several swimmers I know first hand that semi finaled at opens and haven’t been under the new sc qualifying times.
It’s even worse when you consider the dates clash with pacific school games which will take another chunk of athletes away.
I would be interested for SAL’s justification.
This is very interesting, and I cannot seem to work out why they have made this decision.
Short Course Nationals is very much at the low end of importance over here, and entries are always very low.
In November, most swimmers (open & age group) are preparing for the big State Championships (Queensland & NSW), with the exception of the real top end elite open swimmers.
So by reducing times significantly, I can only assume SAL only want that open elite (or close to) level swimmers to attend, because they will now get next to no entries from age group level swimmers or fringe level opens, as these swimmers will either A) not qualify due to the huge time… Read more »
4 second increase in average qualifying time! Wow.
I do not agree with a drop of this magnitude, allowing only 2-3 heats at best at these competition. Swimming Australia has to realize that their is not the same pool size (excuse the pun) of swimmers to chose from as the US. This does not and will not promote for a sustainable competition.
I’m all for making it tougher to qualify as that’s how you get people motivated but this is a big reach. This meet will already attracts way smaller numbers than National Age and Open in LC.
This meet was a great meet for swimmers who, like myself, were a second or two under the old qualifying standards to get another chance to race some of… Read more »