2025 Masters Swimming WA State Championships
- May 3-4, 2025
- Perth, Australia
- Perth High Performance Centre
- LCM (50 meters)
- Results
Two-time Australian Olympian and former World Championship gold medalist Sally Hunter set a pair of world records while competing at the Masters Swimming WA State Championships last weekend in Perth.
Hunter, who turned 40 on April 13, kicked off the meet by clocking 1:11.29 in the 100 breaststroke, breaking the women’s 40-44 world record of 1:12.29 set by Germany’s Nicole Heidemann in 2022.
Hunter set a personal best time of 1:07.46 back at the 2013 Australian Championships.
Later in the meet, she clocked 32.30 in the 50 breast to lower Heidemann’s 40-44 world record of 32.42, also set in 2022.
Hunter’s lifetime best in the 50 sits at 31.50, set at the 2015 FINA World Cup in Singapore.
In addition to her world records, Hunter broke the Australian National Masters Record in the 100 free, clocking 59.12 to take down Jennie Bucknell‘s record from 2009 while also downing Shane Gould‘s 25-year-old WA State record of 1:01.62.
Hunter also clocked 27.19 in the 50 free, 29.01 in the 50 fly and 34.43 in the 50 back, picking up victories in all six events she raced.
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Hunter, who formerly competed as Sally Foster before getting married in 2013, represented Australia at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Games in London. She placed 9th in the 200 breast in Beijing before making the final in London, finishing 8th.
Hunter also competed for Australia at four consecutive LC World Championships from 2007 to 2013, winning four relay medals, including a gold on home soil at the 2007 meet in Melbourne in the women’s 4×100 free relay. She also won five SC World Championship medals, including an individual silver in the 200 breast, and was a two-time medalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, including gold in the women’s 4×100 medley relay.
For comparison, Foster went a 1:09.63 last year in the prelims of the 100 breast Trials for Paris in Brisbane last year.
Masters swimming getting the focus it deserves from swimswam
We need to see Mel make a run at a national title
great
Worth noting in relation to Masters age women breaststrokers (Foster-Hunter/40-44 age group) that 47 year old Gabrielle “Gabby” Rose swam in the Ft. Lauderdale Pro Swim Series meet this last week and had a spread of LCM breaststroke swims as follows: :31.63 / 1:08.96 / 2:32.22, compared to youngster Foster-Hunter’s excellent run of :32.30 / 1:11.29.
At the 2024 US Olympic Trials, when Gabrielle would have been 45 or 46, still not young enough to get back into the 40-44 age group, she was 1:08.32 and 2:30.13.
Great job by Sally, but in the same sense, it seemed a reasonable time to appreciate the Rose.
Master world record is only recognized on Master Swimming Championships, not like in athletics/track & field.
It’s not fair to compare it because Rose who drafting by King, Douglas, Walsh and the like, and Hunter not.
To say she was drafting is silly. I don’t agree with comparing, but don’t make it sound like Gabby only swims that fast by drafting. She goes sub 1:10s in her sleep.
Nothing in your comment is correct. Masters world records can be broken in any meet in a regulation pool that has a Masters sanction. Of course comparisons are valid. That’s the whole point of competition, rankings and records.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Not really. Both can have joy; one is just objectively faster. Live with it.
I think her lifetime bests were a bit faster than in the article (30. high and 1.07 on the 100), but still incredible.