2017 QUEENSLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, December 9th (relays only) – Friday, December 15th
- Prelims at 8:30am local (5:30pm night before EST) & Finals at 6pm local (3am EST)
- Brisbane Aquatic Centre
- SCM
- Meet Central
- Entry List
- Live Results
- Live Stream (Swimming QLD FB Page)
This weekend kicks off the Queensland Championships, one of three important state meets gearing Australian swimmers up for the all-important Commonwealth Games Trials next February. Olympians, World Champions, and rising talent comprise the body of swimmers set to descend on the Brisbane Aquatic Centre to test their training from December 9th to the 15th before heading next to the Victorian Open and then NSWs, which both land in mid-January.
As a refresher, the Commonwealth Games Trials marks Australia’s first attempt at modeling qualifying timeframes after the Americans. In 2016, as in years past, Australian timing involved Olympic Trials happening in April, a good 3 1/2 months ahead of the start of the 2016 Olympic Games. However, the fact that the United States carried away so much success from Rio with their team trials occurring just a month out from the start of the Games, some down under began looking to that model as one to apply to Australia. After months of review, Swimming Australia decided to pull the trigger on the change, moving its Trials for benchmark events, such as the Commonwealth Games, World Championships and the Olympics, to be around 5 weeks away from the main events.
As such, the Queensland Championships will be a chance for domestic rivals to size one another up, as the 2018 Commonwealth Games hold even more significance for the green and gold as they’re being hosted in their home nation. 2016 Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers will take on Cameron McEvoy and James Magnussen in the freestyle events, along with World Championships stand-out Jack Cartwright.
Both Campbell sisters will be ready to rumble, albeit with a barely-held-together body on Bronte’s part, as we reported on earlier this month. Multiple World Championships medalist Emma McKeon and sole Australian gold medalist from Budapest, Emily Seebohm, will each be taking on a solid schedule in Brisbane. By herself Seebohm is entered in 7 individual events, but look for her to possibly drop that schedule down with several conflicts with her bread-and-butter 100/200 backstroke events. She’ll have youngsters Kaylee McKeown and Minna Atherton waiting to pounce on a chance to top the fields this weekend in those events.
Mitch Larkin, Mack Horton and James Roberts will also all be in attendance to gauge where they’re at, but one major star not in the mix will be Olympic silver medalist Maddie Groves. Per Swimming Australia, Groves underwent surgery to address endometriosis two weeks ago and will not be competing in Queensland.
Loretta, the core reason for the timing of AUS Nationals has been due to Australia’s geographic location deep in the Southern Hemisphere and thus its traditional competitive season (over AUS summer/autumn) being the reverse to the overwhelming bulk of its international competition.
Swimming AUS HAS, in the past, held Trials closer to major events held “at home” or in neighbouring countries (1990 CG, 1991 & 1998 Worlds) and if anything, the move change the calendar has, in fact, been sidetracked by CG being held in AUS in early April.The full SA calendar for 2018 is not yet out so we will not have a complete read as to whether they will hold Natls (note that the Feb selection meet has… Read more »
The way Aussie sprint free is going on the mens side, Chalmers will swim a 49 and Cartwright will break the WR
Haters are going to hate.
All four studs will swim 48:5 or better.
Bring in pan PACs 18 against the septic yanks.?
Lets just wait and see what they actually DO produce !!
Certainly having 3 swimmers produce sub48s over the past 18 months does make a strong notional case for a strong AUS M4X100 ….. but putting aside the issue of who’s the fourth member; Chalmers still has to show that he CAN get back to sub48. One hopes he can and does so but as yet, we have no performances as proof. McEvoy has still yet to prove his 47.04 was anything more than a career outlier.
As for 4th man, Magnussen’s mouth has been notably faster than his times post 2015 operation; one can only hope some new name DOES step up rather than having to rely on… Read more »
CW and Aussiecrawl.. just remember that Brazil will also probably be on Pan Pac and US beat Brazil by a very small margin..
After World, Spajari just went 48,29 at FAP trophy and on today Prelims of Open he already went 48,6.. Today is Open 100 free finals.. we might see something very good..
Very true !! They could certainly be very much a factor in this relay.
Brazil is the only Team right now capable of bothering Usa in that specific relay …and they did it 4 months ago .
Well , for Pan Pacs , the Yanks will have surprises for u guys in the 3 relays and 50 , 100 free ….lets just wait
USA should sweep all 3 men’s relays; with 4×100 looking the only remotely competitive one. In all honesty, the only relay where I can see any realistic potential for USA being beaten is the W4X100 (but C2’s delaying remedial work on her shoulders will most likely weaken AUS). Otherwise, barring USA breaking, the likely scenario is “who comes 2nd” ??