2020 SOUTH AUSTRALIA STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, January 18 – Thursday, January 23rd
- SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, Oaklands Park
- LCM
- Meet Site
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
- Live Results
The 2020 South Australia State Championships brought us another day with 21-year-old Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers in the SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre pool, representing his Marion Swimming Club in spades.
After already reaping individual gold medals across the 50m fly (23.48), 200m fly (2:00.37) and 400m free (3:53.66), despite the latter 2 races representing ‘off’ events, Chalmers was more in his element on day 4 with the 100m freestyle.
King Kyle established himself as the man to beat in the morning heats, reaping the only sub-49 second time, and sub-50 second for that matter, with a solid 48.50. Splits for his morning effort included 23.40/25.10 as an opening swim that would rank him 6th in the world among performances registered since September 2019.
However, the man had designs on one-upping himself in the final, dipping under the 48-second threshold to nail a gold medal-worthy 47.99. Splitting 23.05/24.94, Chalmers scored the first sub-48 second time of the calendar year 2020.
He ties Russia’s Vlad Morozov as the 3rd fastest swimmer since September 2019.
Top ‘3’ Men’s Performers in LCM 100 Freestyle Since September 2019
Rank   Time   Name              Team  Meet Name Meet                    Date
1       47.69   Apple, Zach        USA   2019 Toyota U.S. Open Atlanta USA   12/07/2019
2      47.78   Grinev, Vladislav    RUS   2019 World Cup – Kazan Kazan RUS   11/02/2019
3      47.99   Morozov, Vladimir  RUS   2019 Word Cup – Budapest HUN      10/05/2019
3      47.99  Chalmers, Kyle   AUS   2020 South Australia State AUS  01/21/2020
For perspective, at this same meet in 2019, Chalmers clocked a morning swim of 49.41 before sitting out of the final. He became the 2nd fastest Australian ever in a textile suit with his monster 47.08 silver medal-winning time behind America’s Caeleb Dressel at the 2019 World Championships.
Just for fun, I looked at Chalmers’ fastest 100m free time in January 2016, the year he took Olympic gold in Rio. He was 49.30 at this same competition on January 20th of that year.
Not to be missed on the women’s side at this 2020 meet, however, was a nice swim by Chalmers’ significant other, Madi Wilson. The 25-year-old punched a 200m free time of 1:57.09 to top the podium, representing one of three swimmers in the open final under the 2:00 threshold. Joining Wilson was Mikkayla Sheridan in 1.58.66 and Leah Neale in 1:59.88.
Wilson owns a personal best of 1:56.85 logged at last year’s World Championships Trials. However, she showed up big-time for Australia as a member of her nation’s 4x200m free relay in Gwangju, splitting 1:56.73 on the 2nd leg to help bring them to a new World Record of 7:41.50.
In the women’s 17-18 age category, backstroke ace Kaylee McKeown took the top prize in a mark of 1:58.82 to get to the wall well over 3 seconds ahead of the field. That represents McKeown’s first time ever under 2:00, with her previous PB represented by the 2:00.96 posted at the Aussie World Trials last year.
Let’s not forget that it was the first this DECADE. It’ll be a fast one for him, I expect great things.
Chalmers is winning. Dressel goes 46.9 with a good start. Chalmers 47.0 with a bad one. This is indicative of Chalmers having the superior freestyle technique therefore it will be easier for Chalmers to drop time in terms of free swim speed.
great time for January – But Apple’s 47.69 back in December was super impressive
This was his 13th Race in 3 Days as well. Including 2fly Heats & Finals and 400fs. Serious athlete
Very good point.
Kaylee is having a big meet… wish her sister could find her mojo back..
Look at his splits, more front end speed incoming
We, as swimming fans, are in for a treat this summer it seems 🙂
Wouldn’t know the article was about Chalmers judging by the comments. Best or luck to him, I’d love to see him go out on a high by defending his title.