2020 SOUTH AUSTRALIA STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, January 18 – Thursday, January 23rd
- SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, Oaklands Park
- LCM
- Meet Site
- Distance Events Start Lists
The 2020 South Australia State Championships are taking place this weekend at the SA Aquatic & Leisure Center, site of the nation’s Olympic Trials this summer. Although the official start lists for this long course SA State meet have yet to be published in their entirety, the lane assignments for the distance races have been revealed, with some eye-opening entries unveiled in the process.
Of note, speedster Kyle Chalmers of Marion is entered in both the men’s 400m and 800m freestyle events for this weekend’s action.
The 100m freestyle Olympic champion from Rio and World Championships silver medalist from Gwangju holds the top seed in the 400m free with a time of 3:55.29, the only sub-4:00 entry mark of the field. In the 800m, Chalmers’ entry of 8:28.97 lands him in lane 2 of the final heat, situated about 20 seconds behind clear leader Brendon Smith of Nunawading (8:09.69).
The last time Chalmers raced the 400m free was at the 2018 edition of these state championships, where he logged a time of 3:56.14. It was the year prior at the same meet where he produced his seed time of 3:55.29, a personal best.
As for the 800m free, King Kyle only has 1 swim appearing in the Swimming Australia database, marked by his 8:28.97 entry performance notched at a Division I meet in November 2017, the same year he underwent his first heart surgery.
Imagine Dressel sees this and signed up for the 400/800 next tyr pro series stop.
Much more swimmers with tattoos than there were back in 08
When do they have time to heal?
Chalmers seems to be focused on speed in the buildup for next year. Would be surprised if he can beat 3:55 but wouldn’t bet my life he won’t.
3:55/7:59
Every other coach with a swimmer in the 800:
“You’ll need to get on this from the gun, the lad in lane 2’s got a cracking sprint on him, need to swim that out of him.”