2025 AUSTRALIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, October 1st – Friday, October 3rd
- Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- SCM (25m)
- Meet Central
- Final Start List
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap
- Live Results
— Swim Media (@SwimMedia1) October 2, 2025
Video courtesy of @SwimMedia1
Day two of the 2025 Australian Short Course Championships unfolded tonight from the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre.
Olympic champion Cameron McEvoy took to the water in his sole event of the men’s 25m freestyle.
31-year-old new dad McEvoy scorched a winning time of 9.36, getting to the wall nearly a second ahead of the field.
Callum Halloran-Lavelle was the next to touch, hitting 10.22, followed by Samuel Herraman who secured bronze in 10.35.
This one-lap splash n’ dash represented McEvoy’s sole event of this competition.
For perspective, Jordan Crooks‘ world record time of 19.90 at the 2024 World Short Course Championships saw him split 9.55 to his feet on the turn.
After the race, McEvoy commented on what this one-lap feat means to him.
“I would love World Aquatics to recognise the 25m and times across the world … and for a 25m world record to be ratified … something that can set a standard for us to chase and to change
“It could be part of World Cups … and as you can see from the buzz tonight, it brings a lot of excitement. It is an event the world can get behind – it’s unique, novel and definitely adds excitement to the sport.
“I haven’t seen that much buzz around a competition or an event, in swimming in a very long time. I just want speed. And I think the crowd loves to see speed.
“The 25m has a direct correlation, a snowball effect, to the 50m. It’s a unique opportunity for countries to get behind this and then have an event run domestically, it’s revolutionary and it’s exciting.”
The women’s edition of the 25m free saw 15-year-old Lily Young of Cruz sneak into the wall first for the victory.
The young swimmer posted 11.58, just a hair ahead of 18-year-old Mackenzie Burns who registered 11.60 as the runner-up.
16-year-old Jodie Mead rounded out the podium in 11.71.
The women’s 200m free saw 24-year-old Brittany Castelluzzo of Tea Tree Gully reap the gold tonight.
Castelluzzo stopped the clock at 1:54.69 to get the job done, splitting 56.00/58.69 in the process.
That was enough to hold off 22-year-old Tara Kinder of Melbourne Vicentre who touched just .30 behind in 1:54.99. 22-year-old Lucy Dring rounded out the podium in 1:57.57.
Castelluzzo’s best time in this event remains at the 1:53.70 notched during last year’s World Aquatics Swimming World Cup, although her outing tonight checks in as the third-best outing of her rising career.
17-year-old Amelie Smith followed up her win last night in the 200m breaststroke with a solid performance in the 400m IM.
The Rock City ace produced a big-time personal best of 4:36.67 as the sole swimmer of the field to delve under the 4:40 barrier this evening.
Chua Xiandi earned silver in 4:43.19 and Dakoda Mathers turned in 4:49.30, good enough for bronze.
Entering this competition, Smith’s career-swiftest outing in this event rested at the 4:40.92 put up at last year’s edition of this competition. Her new PB here places her in slot #6 among all-time Australian 17-year-old female performers.
Olympian Sam Short doubled up on his 400m free win with a powerful performance in the 1500m.
Short busted out a time of 14:25.26, a new lifetime best.
He owned the race, with open water ace Nick Sloman finishing well behind in 14:53.99 and Tommy Lane just over the 15:00 barrier at 15:00.14.
Short is now the #2 Aussie of all time in this event, sitting only behind Grant Hackett‘s national record of 14:10.10 established at the 2001 edition of this competition.
Additional winners on the evening included 30-year-old James McKechnie turning in a time of 26.61 in the men’s 50m breast and 22-year-old Kai Taylor logging 47.31 to reap gold in the men’s 100m free.
Matt Temple was just .06 outside of Taylor in the 100m free with James Ward placing third in 47.89.
Of note, the women’s 100m backstroke results were not available at the time of publishing.
Additional Winners
- Nunawading’s Halloran-Lavelle came up with the win in the men’s 50m back, registering 24.35.
- The men’s 200m IM saw Samuel Higgs put up 1:56.45 to top the men’s 200m IM podium, a personal best by nearly two seconds.
- Bond’s Claudia Fydler was too quick to catch in the women’s 50m fly, turning in a time of 25.94. Her result crushed her previous best-ever outing of 26.53 posted just last August at the Queensland Short Course Championships.
Prime Dressel goes 8.99 👀
No.
Herbie Behm has mentioned that his sprinters do 25 YARDS for time every once in a while. Would be cool if he could move the bulhead occasionally so they’d swim 25 meters instead.
Lots of 25 yard content out of Arizona State if you’re curious to see more:
https://swimswam.com/caroline-bentz-beats-regan-smith-dolan-wins-mens-crown-in-asu-25-free-world-championship/
https://swimswam.com/ryan-held-swims-9-57-scm-25-free-wins-four-round-tournament-at-arizona-state/
https://swimswam.com/michael-andrew-swims-8-56-in-25-yard-free-breaks-arizona-state-touchpad-25-record/
They do yards and meters.
Ryan Held has the unofficial record at last check with a 9.57 in the 25m.
This is great, thanks. There is LOVE out there for the 25!!! (Here? Not so much.)
To get even geekier, is Dressel still the WR holder at 15m? 😂 ie The only sub-5sec guy? Or did Crooks/McEvoy surpass?
***Quotes self***
In my little world, there is 12 “events”:
15m, 25m, 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10000m, and 25000m.
It bugs me that there seems to be as much love for 25m as there is for the ultramarathon 25k, these days. (Is WA still trying to figure out what to do with 25k, if anything?)
McEvoy did a wonderful thing here. An Olympic gold medallist, shining a bright light on the 25m.
I stan!
I think someone should just host a separate 25k World Championship, outside of the normal sphere.
7:31.79 for short, no. 2 aus all time
If track and field can have a 10-second event, swimming deserves one too. I think the 25 free should be an Olympic event (after several other changes get made to the schedule first, like removing semis of 200s)
They aren’t converting to pool to 25m just to do one event.
You wouldn’t have to convert a pool. They have those lane dividers that you hook up on the lane lines! Just use those.
Although I disagree with the logic equating the 100m to the 25 free. The 100m is all about accelerating quickly, in that the slowest point of the race is the start; whereas in swimming, it’s essentially just a jump + trying to maintain that momentum. At that point the event is a mix between swimming and diving – would the ideal 25 swimmer look different than the ideal 50/100 swimmer? Bottom-heavy and slim on the top to maximize acceleration off the start?
It’s just too much about the start at that point, in my opinion. The 50… Read more »
I think I counted 13 strokes for McEvoy. Surely that counts as “swimming”?
I don’t get the dismissal of a good start, dive, dolphin as part of the event. There’s a LOT going on in the 25m!!
I think Dressel said that he worked on 7 or 8 strokes before the turn during his fastest 50 yd races. That was to a flip over a distance that is 2.14m shorter (just over 7 feet shorter). I am guessing that the 2017 Dressel would need 9 or 10 strokes during a 25m Free race.
When listening to international commentators and if you watch the 100m dash I feel you can see that the people that accelerate too quick in the 100m dash fades a lot. International commentators talk about the 100 being an acceleration during the first 60ish meters and then try to not slow down (or slow down to much during the last 30-40m). The 60m dash is a lot more about quick acceleration, but that race is just over 6 seconds.
Watching the 60m and the 100m dash we can see that several/most of the best 60m runners start to struggle at the end of the 100m races.
I think this is pretty neat but I wonder if McEvoy, Dressel or Crooks (or someone else) could break 9 seconds with a few more tries.
No way. I think 9.25 tops over the next decade.
It is difficult to judge from a video like this one, but I don’t think that McEvoy’s finish was a great finish, so with a perfect finish he could save a little time there. Not sure about other parts of the race
https://swimswam.com/new-dad-cameron-mcevoy-races-one-lap-free-at-aussie-short-course-championships-video/#comment-1634551
Prime Dressel for sure goes 8.99
No.
I’d like to see a 12.5m of breastroke world record attempt from Michael Andrew next
Aussie’s now getting excited over the bath tub swims they hate on in the US. It’s ok AUS with time you will catch up to our ways. As always we forgive you.
this pool is still measured in meters. Not a real bathtub unless it is 22.86 meters.
Na, it’s still bathtub swims, but at least it’s metres, not yards.
Most of us Aussie swim fans will laugh at it as a Mickey Mouse event. Fun for some media attention but that’s about it..
Still chuckling over commentator Matt Welsh calling Cam’s fastest swim an ‘official unofficial WR’ last night lol
Exciting to say the least! Congrats to the Aussie. Please bring on more 25m and 25yd races, recognize WR in both courses – Fly, Back, Breast, Free and Underwater! Let us make our sport more fun, spectator friendly and allow the true athletes to shine.
25m events are even less spectator friendly than 50m events which are easily the worst viewing experiences on our current program.
How much of that is the terrible, low camera angle they use for most of the race?
Some of it for sure. But it’s not the only factor.
Because the speeds are so low (relative) too track and field it’s very hard for a casual viewer to see who is leading at any point.
And the actual swimming portion is significantly less important than skills, which again isn’t easily distinguishable for a casual viewer.
The race doesn’t lend itself to having interesting race dynamics. There has never in the history of the world been a 50m race as good as the womens 800 at the most recent world champs.
The most popular individual sports are all long events, the most popular sports full stop are longer events. People like long events, this idea that this sort of… Read more »
I’ve said before that it’s the 200m events that need to be marketed. they’re long enough to have several raceplans and lead changes, but the 2 minute duration is still short enough to hold an attention span. even one person dominating can still be a storyline in itself, of whether they can hold on for the gold medal and/or wr – and at least the race is over relatively quickly.
it’s also interesting to look at track events. while the 100 and 200 are the blue riband events and always will be, the m1500 draws more attention than the m400 and 800 do, so it’s not just a matter of shorter = better entertainment value
Pretty much agree with every word you said here.
Thank you for the insightful post – I did not not know that we who enjoy short swimming events do not “like swimming”! How about a 4 x 25 relay? Would that suit your confines as not appealing to “dishonest grifter types”?
Would you watch an event longer than 25m?
Because it’s pretty clear I said would **ONLY** be drawn to a swimming event to watch a 25m freestyle.
Happy to stand behind that.
Ha!
So, I don’t like Swimming. Right.
If you can only tolerate watching it for 10 seconds then yes, I would say you didn’t enjoy swimming.
Perhaps some of us love watching swimming at the fastest speed as it is exciting and thrilling…but our love of the sport must not rise to your boorish standard. Sorry NOT!
I would say you were wrong. (I swam a continuous 5000m today.)
I’ve watched it 10x.
😂
Do I get even more downvotes if I say I watched it 20x?
I watched it 27x, wonder how many times the purveyors of distance events rewatch the 1500m!
Don’t they go get beer from the fridge in the middle laps?