Castelluzzo Clocks 200 Fly Personal Best To Close Out 2025 NSW Championships

2025 NSW STATE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, March 21st – Sunday, March 23rd
• Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview #1
• SwimSwam Preview #2
• Final Entries
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
• Live Results

The final day of action at the 2025 New South Wales State Open Championships saw 23-year-old Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown rip a time of 27.06 in the heats of the women’s 50m back.

That outing represented the 4th-swiftest performance in history and positioned McKeown atop the world rankings on the season. McKeown wound up dropping the final but proved she’s back to form after having withdrawn from last year’s World Aquatics Swimming World Cup to tend to her mental health.

• Kaylee McKeown Rips 27.06 50 Back, 4th-Fastest Performance Ever

24-year-old Brittany Castelluzzo continued her campaign with a tough double of the women’s 200m fly and 200m freestyle this evening.

In the former, the Tea Tree Gully athlete threw down a new personal best, getting to the wall in 2:07.37 as the sole swimmer of the field under the 2:10 barrier.

Castelluzzo split 28.43/32.35/33.01/33.58 to overtake her previous career-quickest outing of 2:07.76 produced at last December’s Queensland Championships.

She now ranks 4th in the world in this event and enters the conversation for potential representation at this summer’s World Championships.

The 200m free, just about 30 minutes later, saw Castelluzzo grab the gold in a time of 1:58.87.

That held off Griffith University’s Milana Tapper who raced to silver in 1:59.58 while Molly Walker rounded out the top 3 performers in 2:00.91.

Castelluzzo’s personal best remains at the 1:56.77 she turned in at last year’s Olympic Trials.

With the retirements of Madi Wilson, Brianna Throssell and Emma McKeon, Castelluzzo can make a bona fide run at potentially making the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay squad for Singapore.

25-year-old Olympic finalist Matt Temple took on his bread-and-butter men’s 100m butterfly this evening.

The Marion star stopped the clock at 51.74 to clear the field by over a second.

Alex Quach registered 52.96 for silver and Enoch Robb bagged bronze in 53.71.

Temple now sits just outside the list of top 5 performers in the world this season, ranking 7th.

24-year-old USC Spartan Thomas Nowakowski logged a winning effort of 22.27 in the men’s 50m free.

That got him to the wall with time to spare ahead of the 100m free champion here William Yang. Yang touched in 22.53 and Ollie Moclair was the 3rd-place finisher in 22.92.

Nowakowski has been as fast as 21.81 in the splash n’ dash in his career, a time he’ll need to approach in order to qualify for this summer’s World Championships.

Finally, on the teen scene, 16-year-old Henry Allan scorched a new lifetime best of 54.23 to take the men’s 100m backstroke.

Opening in 26.26 and closing in 27.97, Allan of Bendigo East Swimming Club sliced .40 off his previous PB of 54.63 notched at last December’s Victorian Age Swimming Championshps.

That former standard stood as the Australian 16-Year-Old-Boys national age record, so he established an improved effort with tonight’s performance.

Additional Notes

• 21-year-old Tara Kinder produced another lifetime best, this time in the women’s 200m IM. The Melbourne Vicentre athlete clocked a gold medal-worthy result of 2:11.39. That surpassed the 2:12.78 former PB she raced her way to nearly 4 years ago.
• The men’s 400m IM saw Olympian Se-Bom Lee top the podium in 4:18.78.
• USC Spartan Alexandria Perkins notched a time of 28.07 to win the women’s 50m back gold.