2019 VICTORIAN SPRINT CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, 01/12 & Sunday, 01/13
- Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Center
- LCM
- SwimSwam Meet Preview
- Psych Sheet
- Live Results
The 2019 Victorian Sprint Championships meet kicked off on today in Melbourne, where a fury of 66 events will be contested over just 2 days. Individual events consist of 50m sprints of each stroke for men and women, while both will also race a unique 5 x 50m freestyle relay.
Age groups are categorized as 11&U, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17&18 and 19&O for both men and women, with the entirety of day 1 dedicated to heats, while day 2 is timed finals of all events.
As such, swimmers set themselves up with prelim swims today in Melbourne, where several athletes claimed multiple top seeds with the hopes of racking up more than one podium spot during tomorrow’s finals. One such athlete in the 11&U group was Romy Heard of MH20.
Heard wrangled up 3 top seeds across the girls’ 50m free (30.29), 50m back (35.20) and 50m breast (39.30), while also notching the 2nd seeded effort of 32.34 in the 50m fly, marking a new lifetime best for the young swimmer. Ahead of Heard in that 11&U girls’ 50m fly was Northcote’s Alisha Waters, who notched 32.12.
Johann Stickland of Propulsion was another repeat 1st place finishers during today’s heats, marked by his trio of performances across the boys’ 15-year-old 50m back, 50m breast and 50m fly races. In the back, Strickland landed a new personal best of 28.37 to hack .20 off of his entry time of 28.57.
In the 50m breast, Stickland also got the job done to claim the top seed in 32.18, slicing .25 off of his previous career fastest. Finally in the fly, the Propulsion swimmer blew .65 off of his previous personal best to log a #1 prelims time of 26.51.
Both 14-year-old Sarah Zhang and Paris Burlock staked their claims across several events today, with the former taking the 50m fly (29.91) and 50m back (32.04) top places. For her part, Burlock claimed the 50m free top slot in 26.94.
Finally, the Firbank boys of Lachlan Jackett-Simpson and Nicholas Layton made some noise on day 1, highlighted by Jackett-Simpson’s top spot in the 16-year-olds’ 50m free in 24.46. Layton took a top seed himself, rocking a 26.36 in the 50m fly to set himself up nicely for tomorrow.
