Most of the ‘double duty’ Australian swim team will camp in Spain for two weeks between the World Championships and Commonwealth Games before joining their compatriots in Chartres, France for final preparations.
With the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England now only a month away, most of the Australian team has opted to stay in Europe after the World Championships rather than take the grueling 26+ hour flight home to Australia, just to turn around and return in a few weeks.
Most of the Australian team will spend two weeks in Spain (landing in Barcelona), then head to Chartres, France. There, they will meet up with the open water swimmers, para-swimmers, and other athletes coming over from Australia rather than Budapest.
The two major exceptions are Australia’s two swimmers with ongoing health issues. Sprint freestyler Shayna Jack returned to Australia to undergo surgery on her broken hand and will rejoin the team in Chartres, while Lani Pallister remains in Budapest in quarantine after a positive test for COVID-19. Pallister’s plan is to remain in Budapest until she clears quarantine, and then to travel straight with the Australian open water team to Chartres.
Of the 34 Australian swimmers who swam in the pool at the 2022 FINA World Aquatics Championships, all but three are scheduled to swim at the Commonwealth Games as well. The exceptions are Jack Cartwright, Moesha Johnson, and Leah Neale.
They will be joined by 15 other poolswimmers in Chartres in preparations for the Commonwealth Games. That includes swimming stars Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus, Holly Barratt, and Mina Atherton, plus pop star Cody Simpson, who will make his international debut for Australia in the 100 fly. Also joining the group will be Ben Armbruster, Chelsea Hodges, Bronte Job, Taylor McKeown, Alexandria Perkins, Kieren Pollard, Flynn Southam, Samuel Williamson, Josh Wong, and Bradley Woodward.
Along with a group of Para-swimmers, Australia will send an integrated team of 76 to the Commonwealth Games.
A short-handed Australian team, made shorter by health issues, still wound up 2nd on the medals table at the World Championships. They won 6 gold, 9 silver, and 2 bronze medals, placing them behind on the United States’ 17/12/16. Even without a number of their stars, Australia had more gold medals in Budapest than they did at the last LCM World Championship meet in Gwangju in 2019 (albeit fewer total medals).
Australia has historically been the dominant team in swimming at the Commonwealth Games. In 2018, they won 28 out of 50 gold medals on offer, more than all other nations combined, and 73 out of 149 total medals offered. Each country can enter three swimmers in every event at the Commonwealth Games, as compared to just two at the World Championships.
Really looking forward to seeing a fresh Emma and Arianne in the pool , Arianne i bet got her sights on the 200 free WR. With the inclusion of Emma in the 4 x 100 free again WR a distinct possibility
Will there be a CWG pickem?
Yeah I think the likes of Titmus and Cody Simpson get to enjoy some time training in sunny Barcelona before moving on to France in two weeks
According to Instagram some of the CWG only swimmers are already in Barcelona to join up the WC team.
Can’t wait for all the CWG swimming preview articles to start popping up. I haven’t sat down to assess who my favourites are for each event, but I’d like to think the medals will be slightly more dispersed than they were 4 years ago on the Gold Coast.
Likely not with a full and all-in Aussie squad. GB both stretched between the 3 champ meets: world’s, CG, and Euros as well as the division internally to England, Scotland, Wales etc. Canada has a couple of big names bypassing CG after worlds, plus for some strange internal reason (Canada wide all sport team limits?) Is and can only send 23 total pool swimmers. Looks like there will be some very entertaining, fast and competitive medal races amongst the Commonwealth, but will be an Aussie onslaught overall…
Hopefully there’ll be some very fast times anyway. Maybe a fresh McIntosh can trim some more seconds off her 400 IM WJR given it’s on day one?
would be cool if she broke the actual WJR from Ye Shiwen. With a good taper, if nothing goes wrong, I would imagine she is capable of dropping a second from her previous best
Would be surprised if there WERE any event preview articles for either CG or Euros. DO remember this is a largely N.American site, albeit with a surprisingly global readership; who’s staff is almost exclusively US based. In essence, who’s going to put these together ……. unless they recruit one of us to demonstrate our erudition ROFLAO?
Most likely what you will see are the session recaps, maybe session previews.
They did articles for Mare Nostrum despite very few Americans swimming it. They definitely won’t have in-depth analysis with an article for each event, but I think their coverage will be good.
I was in no way criticising SS staff who, quite honestly, do an admirable job covering the world outside US domestic/NCAA. Rather, I was pointing out that the coverage we are likely to see is unlikely to be of the scope we see for World/Olympics with event previews/predictions.
I really wish Jack Cartwright was swimming at the CW games. His form at Worlds was beyond impressive.
Yes let’s hope Zac Incerti has fully recovered from illness, and Flynn steps up in the relays
Yes with Carthwright recovering from Injury, Incerti from illness & Flynn improving, the 4 X 100 free will no longer be a one man band by Chalmers.
There’s also Temple who can hopefully figure out what’s wrong and regain his Tokyo form.
Yes forgot about Temple, another huge one for the Aussies.
Cartwright’s (highly impressive) return was a very real plus; one hopes we’ve seen the end of the road with regards to his injury issues. Should Southam make the grade; then it certainly makes a more solid relay …. as well as less business for Chalmers’ chiropractor.
Yes, he literally became a World Record holder!
I am actually wondering if they will let Jack Cartwright and Leah Neale stay in the camp for last minute additions (if it is allowed). These two really performed above expectations.
With Shayna still recovering, and is still a question mark if she will be ready by CG or Covid decides to mess up (which is a reality), they may be called up.
Looks like Neale is in Barcelona with the team based on her IG. Either she still trains with the team or she is just having a vacation.
I am actually wondering if they will let Jack Cartwright and/or Leah Neale stay in the camp for last minute additions (if it is allowed). These two really performed above expectations.
With Shayna still recovering, and is still a question mark if she will be ready by CG or Covid decides to mess up (which is a reality), they may be called up.
COVID “insurance” would be the only reason for doing so. Whilst there are certainly some individual event/relay crossovers; unlike Worlds/Olympics, in 90% of events there will be little need for leading swimmers to expend much more than “half rat power” in heats/almost all semis and AUS could field their distance freestylers in 4×100 heats and still comfortably qualify. Thus the need for relay only swimmers may be considerably less.
With regards to Jack; outside of COVID necessity, there’s probably no need to bring in an additional swimmer. The most likely move would be the 50 & 100 swims handed off to Wilson.4X100 line-up of MOC, McKeon, Wilson & Harris. They could very easily co-opt Throssell or Titmus. 4×200 squad most… Read more »
Yeah it is hard to build a case for Neale.
Cartwright on the other hand is quite critical. Canada has a chance in 4×100. They are just 1.2 seconds away from us in Worlds. Yuri Kisil can drop a 47 low based on his performance from Tokyo. He was “just” 48 low in Bedapest.