Chalmers Opts Out Of 50 Free Final While McKeown Clocks PB In The Event

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/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap
• Live Results

The 2020 South Australian State Championships came to a close tonight at SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, with 21-year-old Kyle Chalmers wrapping up his 20th+ swim of the 6-day meet.

After already stepping onto the blocks for events ranging from his bread-and-butter 100m and 200m freetsyles to the 200m fly, Chalmers capped off his campaign with a morning 50m free splash.

Touching in a time of 22.51, Chalmers claimed the top seed of the men’s field but opted out of contesting the final this evening. In his absence, flymeister David Morgan took the state title in a time of 23.40, just .02 ahead of Grayson Bell.

The women’s 50m free for the 17-18 age group saw standout Queenslander Kaylee McKeown add another piece of hardware to her South Aussie States collection. The 18-year-old fired off a time of 25.81 to represent the only swimmer to dip under the 26-second threshold.

In fact, McKeown’s outing represents her first time ever under 26 seconds, crushing her previous personal best of 26.26 clocked at a 2018 Queensland meet.

This swim is simply par for the course here for McKeown, however, as the World Championships silver medalist established lifetime bests and world-leading 100m and 200m backstroke efforts of 58.52 and 2:05.83 earlier in the meet.

Jake Packard got under the minute mark to take the men’s 100m breaststroke, registering a time of 59.89. Splitting 27.84/32.05, Packard scored his fastest time ever performed at a non-championships meet.

He holds a PB of 59.20 from the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships where he took silver, although his previous fastest in-season mark was represented by the 59.90 set at the FINA World Cup in Doha last year.

Additional Notes:

• Chalmers was entered in the men’s 200m IM but wound up not swimming the event. Nunawading’s Brendon Smith reaped the win in a time of 2:03.82, the 5th fastest time of the 19-year-old’s career.
• The women’s 100m fly saw USC Spartan Mikkayla Sheridan get it done for gold, with the 24-year-old stopping the clock in 1:00.00.
• Jess Hansen found success in the women’s 200m breast with a time of 2:29.16.
• Freestyle ace Kiah Melverton touched in 8:26.90 to clear the women’s 800m free field with ease. This marks the 6th fastest time of the 22-year-old’s career.