While James Magnussen scratched his 200 free in prelims of the 2nd day of the South Australia Championships, Blair Evans did not, and she provided more-than-enough entertaining swims to shout about with a double in the 400 and 200 freestyles.
First, in the 400, she put up a drop similar to her 400 IM to go a 4:08.36 for a South Australian All-Comers Record. She tacked on a record in the 200 as well with a 1:58.23.
While those swims were good, her 400 IM from the first day of competition was better. Suddenly, it looks as though maybe her focus should shift from the distance freestyles entirely to the 400 IM. We might get a clearer answer to this question when she swims the 200 IM on Sunday – anything 2:13 or better and her decision for where to take his training is going to become very difficult.
Several other All-Comers records went down in the meet as well. 20-year old Daniel Trater broke the 400 IM mark with his winning time of 4:20.27; and Josh Palmer broke a 17-year old mark in the 50 breaststroke with a 29.01.
Bobby Hurley took a double in the 200 and 800 freestyles. He swam a 1:49.80 in the 200 free and an 8:15.99 in the 800 free. His endurance in that 800 isn’t quite there, but his speed seems to be going fairly well as that’s a good 200 time for him.
And Emily Seebohm made her debut in the meet in 25.74 to win the women’s 50 free. That’s not an event she puts much focus on, but that does happen to be the 3rd-best time in her career (by only a tenth), and her fastest since 2009.
