William Petric Comes On Strong At South Aussie State Championships

2026 SOUTH AUSTRALIAN STATE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, January 16th – Sunday, January 18th
• South Australia Aquatic & Leisure Centre, Oaklands Park
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap
• Live Results
• Livestream

The 2026 South Australian State Open Championships continued from the South Australia Aquatic & Leisure Centre, with 21-year-old William Petric making his presence known.

The visiting ace from Nunawading tried the men’s 100m freestyle on for size, clocking the fastest time of the field in 50.02.

Next to the wall was 26-year-old Olympian Matt Temple, hitting 50.22 followed by 18-year-old Ren Sarumaru of Japan who notched 51.29.

As for Petric, the versatile swimmer knocked nearly a second off his former personal best of 50.94, a time registered at the 2024 NSW State Open Championships.

Petric was also the top performer in the men’s 200m back, posting an effort of 2:00.38 to get to the wall first.

Japan’s Kotato Iida logged 2:00.95 as the next-swiftest performer and Noah Pronk of Immanuel also got on the board in 2:00.95.

Petric has been as quick as 2:00.72 entering this competition, so he managed to earn another personal best with tonight’s performance.

Tea Tree Gully’s Brittany Castelluzzo got it done for gold in the women’s 200m freestyle, putting up the sole time of the pack under the 2:00 barrier.

The 25-year-old posted 1:58.31, comprised of splits including 27.34/30.19 (57.53)/30.26/30.52.

Her effort represents the 8th-best time of her career, one that boasts a PB of 1:56.77 from the 2024 Australian Olympic Trials.

Castelluzzo was also among the women’s 50m fly field tonight, where she registered a winning result of 27.22.

That held off 16-year-old World Junior Championshps medalist Umi Ishizuka of Japan, who touched less than half a second back in 27.52.

Eva Potts, another teenager at just 17 years of age, hit 27.85 in the race.

Of note, results of the men’s 100m fly and 4x100m free relay, along with the women’s 400m IM and 4x100m medley relay were not available at the time of publishing.