2026 Australian Age Championships
- April 11-18, 2026
- Gold Coast Aquatic Centre
- LCM (50 Meters)
- Meet Central
- Heat Sheets
- Day 1 Recap
- Live Results
The 2026 Australian Age Championships entered day two with an explosive performance at the hands of 16-year-old freestyle prodigy Lincoln Wearing.
Representing Chandler, the Tsuyoshi Kimura-trained Wearing took on the 800m freestyle final, where he crushed a new lifetime best of 7:56.04 to win the event decisively.
The next-closest competitor was Singapore’s Russel Pang, who touched in 8:04.70, while Jesse Hamilton rounded out the podium in 8:07.78.
As for Wearing, his result shaved over half a second off his previous PB of 7:56.80 notched at last December’s Queensland Championships.
That prior performance, his first time ever under the 8:00 barrier, established a new Aussie Age Record and Aussies All Comers Record. It undercut the longstanding Australian Age Record of 7:57.93, which Olympic legend Kieren Perkins established 35 years ago at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. That means Wearing established both new benchmarks with tonight’s big-time swim.
After the race, Wearing told Swimming Australia, “I just wanted to give myself the best chance of making the Junior Pan Pac team … I learnt so much at the National Event Camp a few months ago and it really has got me fit for this meet.”
For perspective, Wearing’s time tonight would rank him as the 6th-fastest American 15-and-16-year-old boy in history.
This isn’t the teen’s first head-turning performance. Wearing has been making his mark on the Australian Age Record book for some time, including taking down Grant Hackett‘s 1500m freestyle age record at the 2024 Queensland Championships.
world record when he takes the rocks off
He should be thankful Thorpe didn’t swim 800 in competition at all until 2001 when he swam 800 twice, both were world records.
IMO Thorpe would have been better than Hackett at the 1500 too if he had wanted to be. Biggest talent in swimming history and easily the best freestyler ever.
I don’t think these sort of hypotheticals really matter though, it’s not Wearings fault who does and doesn’t swim events, and he’s now the fastest to ever do it.
What could have been, if
1. He had a coach the same calibre as Bowman, Reese, Boxall, Bohl, or Cotterell,
And
2. Had no personal internal turmoils
I think physiology/technique etc. side Frost is right up there and a lot of even those coaches wouldn’t have gotten the short term results out of Thorpe that Frost did, because they would have recognised that he needed a bit of a soft touch (don’t mean this in a bad way at all). I actually think there’s a decent chance he would have found Boxall overwhelming to be honest (based on my perception of him from reading his books).
He definitely wasn’t good for keeping Thorpe in sport long term. But also not sure how it would have been as a high profile, closeted gay man in the early 2000s in Australia either.
Definitely a sad story, the sport lost… Read more »
I had to read that headline a….few…times
Wait till you see how fast he could swim when he’s not wearing rocks!