Chalmers Puts Up Near-Lifetime Best In 50 Free At 2025 South Aussie States

2025 SOUTH AUSTRALIA STATE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, January 17th – Sunday, January 19th
• SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Live Results

The 2025 South Australia State Open Championships kicked off today from SA Aquatic & Leisure Centre, highlighted by a big-time swim at the hands of Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers.

Back at Marion after a pre-Olympic stint at St. Andrew’s, 26-year-old Chalmers fired off a time of 22.18 in the heats followed by a final swim of 22.01 to break the South Australian state record.

The former state benchmark stood at the 22.07 Chalmers put up in 2019 with his 22.01 outing representing the 2nd-best time of his career. The South Aussie’s PB remains at the 21.98 notched at the 2024 Australian Championships.

The next-closest swimmer in tonight’s contest was 30-year-old Japanese star Katsumi Nakamura who hit 22.58 while Marion teammate Matt Temple rounded out the podium in 23.38.

Both Temple and Chalmers appeared in the last event of the evening, racing on the Marion men’s medley relay. Temple clocked a split of 55.56 on fly and Chalmers anchored in 51.13 on freestyle.

In the women’s 50m free, 18-year-old Olivia Wunsch of New South Wales produced a speedy effort of 25.49 to take the gold, about a second outside her lifetime best of 24.45 from last year.

That garnered the edge over Tea Tree Gully 24-year-old Brittany Castelluzzo who settled for silver in 25.70 followed by Ellysia Oldsen who bagged bronze in 26.17.

15-year-old Sienna Toohey was also in action this evening, demonstrating her prowess in the women’s 200m breaststroke.

The Alsbury Amateur budding talent put up a gold medal-worthy time of 2:30.91 to beat the field by well over 6 seconds. Toohey has been as speedy as 2:29.52 in her career, an effort logged at last year’s Australian Age Championships.

Additional Winners

• 17-year-old Isabel Sheldrick turned in a time of 29.27 to take the women’s 50m back, coming just over half a second outside her PB of 28.64 from last year.
• Masaki Yura of Japan won the men’s 50m back decisively, with his result of 25.35 getting him to the wall over one and a half seconds ahead of the pack.
• The men’s 100m breast saw Japan’s Taka Taniguchi get it done for gold in 1:00.66. James McKechnie was the fastest Australian, hitting 1:02.51 as the silver medalist.
• Ruka Takezawa topped the women’s 400m free podium in 4:11.26, keeping Castelluzzo at bay. Castelluzzo notched 4:14.16 and Molly Walker was next to touch in 4:14.52.
• The men’s 400m free saw Gabriel Gorgas dominate the field, with the 22-year-old turning in a time of 3:57.94 as the only swimmer under the 4:12 threshold.
• Joseph Hamson of Knox Pymble produced a time of 2:04.81 to take the men’s 200m butterfly event.