Brendon Smith Hits 4:10.04 400 IM Australian Record To Qualify For Tokyo

SWIMMING AUSTRALIA OLYMPIC TRIALS

Brendon Smith took gold in the men’s 400 IM at the 2021 Australian Olympic Trials with a 4:10.04 which gets him under the 4:15.24 Olympic qualifying time as well as the former Australian record of 4:10.14.

That former Australian record was set by Thomas Fraser-Holmes at the 2013 Australian Swimming Championships.

Comparative Splits:

Smith 2021 Fraser-Holmes 2013
Butterfly 56.89 56.24
Backstroke 1:03.27 1:04.08
Breaststroke 1:12.72 1:12.15
Freestyle 56.73 57.67

With the 4:10.04, Smith has now advanced to the #4 spot worldwide in the event this season and sits behind Daiya Seto, Lewis Clareburt, and Ilya Borodin.

2020-2021 LCM Men 400 IM

CarsonUSA
Foster
07/23
4:08.46
2Daiya
Seto
JPN4:09.0204/03
3Chase
Kalisz
USA4:09.0906/13
4Brendon
Smith
AUS4:09.2707/24
5Lewis
Clareburt
NZL4:09.4907/24
View Top 26»

The swim for Smith is a solid improvement upon his former best time of 4:14.91 from the 2019 Australian Swimming Championships which earned him a silver medal behind Mitch Larkin’s 4:14.62. More recently, Smith won gold at the 2021 Australian Swimming Championships a few months ago, swimming a 4:15.48.

Following Smith in the final, Se-Bom Lee also swam under the Olympic qualification standard and booked his ticket to the Games with a 4:14.16. That silver medal performance is a significant improvement from his prelim swim of 4:22.79 as well as his time from the recent Australian Championships where he swam a 4:22.11 for 4th place.

Since its introduction to the Olympic program in 1964, Australia has only reached the podium once in the men’s 400 IM. That medal came from Rob Woodhouse at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

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dddddddd
3 years ago

my man closed michael phelps style

A C
Reply to  dddddddd
3 years ago

Yeah, that last 100 free was quick!

Verram
3 years ago

Probably my main highlight for tonight ., along with Emma of course .. but just the fact it came surprisingly for me !!

Old Man Chalmers
Reply to  Verram
3 years ago

in every other race, either no one qualified or someone missed out. the w100 had an aus record but throssell missed the qt, a drop was always required for anyone to make the w400 im or m100 breast, a really fast 400 free final all round but horton gets shut out. but the m400 im had 2 guys who had a chance (not guaranteed but possible) to qualify and one of them slashes 4 sec off his pb to break the aus record

Last edited 3 years ago by Old Man Chalmers
Verram
Reply to  Old Man Chalmers
3 years ago

Ditto .. everything you said .. I just hope Elijah continues to improve and challenge himself for Tokyo and not just rest on that 3:42 .. with dean boxall I’m sure he will be kept accountable