2024 SYDNEY OPEN & UNISPORT NATIONALS
- Thursday, May 9th – Saturday, May 11th
- Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Start List
- Live Results on Meet Mobile: “2024 Sydney Open Meet”
- Day 1 Prelims Recap | Day 1 Finals Recap| Day 2 Prelims Recap
Day 2 of the 2024 Sydney Open & Unisport Nationals brought another session of speedy results ahead of next month’s Olympic Trials. Racers are tuning up and making their final preparation ahead of June’s main event which is the sole competition determining who will represent the green and gold in Paris this summer.
19-year-old Ella Ramsay made some noise tonight in the women’s 100m breaststroke, letting her fellow Aussies know she’s a contender for Paris qualification.
The Chandler ace fired off a time of 1:06.87 to beat the field by over 3 seconds en route to establishing a monster new personal best.
Splitting 31.82/35.05, Ramsay hacked her previous career-quickest mark of 1:07.64 to bits. That prior result was posted at last December’s Queensland Championships. With tonight’s performance, Ramsay now rockets up the list of all-time Aussie performers to land in slot #11.
Her result this evening is already within striking distance of the Swimming Australia-mandated Olympic Qualification Time of 1:06.31 needed to punch her ticket to Paris. Ramsay is now the fastest Aussie this season which bodes well for what she’ll need to accomplish next month against the likes of Jenna Strauch and Chelsea Hodges.
Ramsay has shown her versatility through just 2 days of this competition. She won the 400m free on night one in a big-time personal best of 4:11.49.
New mom Emily Seebohm was also in the water, competing in the women’s 100m backstroke.
The 31-year-old representing St. Margaret’s got to the wall in a mark of 1:00.72 to beat the field by nearly one second.
Runner-up status went to 20-year-old Layla Day who touched in 1:01.52 while 24-year-old Gemma Cooney rounded out the podium in 1:01.63. Of note, Minna Atherton, the SCM 100 backstroke world record holder, settled for 5th in 1:02.33.
Seebohm’s outing is a nice new season-best for the successful veteran, overtaking the 1:01.21 logged at April’s National Championships. Her lifetime best remains at the 58.23 from the heats of the 2012 Olympic Games.
It’s not out of the question for Seebohm to make a run at the 59.62 Olympic QT with her steady improvements since returning to the pool. World record holder Kaylee McKeown is a shoo-in for the top roster slot but there is not a sure thing for position #2.
Mollie O’Callaghan crushed a personal best of 58.09 last month as a warning shot, but we’ll need to see if she includes the event in her Olympic Trials lineup.
Just as with the men’s 200m IM last night, Daiya Seto of Japan and Lewis Clareburt of New Zealand battled it out in the 200m butterfly in tonight’s session.
29-year-old Seto got his hand on the wall first, producing a time of 1:55.45 to eke out the victory over 24-year-old Clareburt. Clareburt, the reigning world champion in the 400m IM, settled for silver in 1:55.64. Bowen Gough represented the fastest Aussie, who stopped the clock at 1:58.39.
Splits for Seto included 25.64/29.72/30.24/29.85 compared to Clareburt who notched 25.99/29.82/30.26/29.57 to charge home and just miss out on gold.
Seto is the Japanese record holder in this 2fly, owning a lifetime best of 1:52.53 from the 2020 Champions Series. Clareburt won this 2fly at this year’s New Zealand Olympic Trials, hitting 1:57.06. However, he’s been as fast as 1:55.60 from when he topped the 2022 Commonwealth Games podium.
Although the men’s 50m free final took place yesterday, several swimmers dove back in for a time trial as part of tonight’s competition.
Cameron McEvoy once again got to the wall first, punching a time of 21.94 as the sole sub-22-second swimmer. That was nearly identical to the 21.91 he registered for gold last night.
16-year-old Joshua Conias was nearly at his same mark as well, posting 22.37 tonight compared to this 22.35 from the primary race. Grayson Bell touched in 22.78 and Clareburt turned in 22.88 for 4th place.
William Yang continued his momentum from the heats of the 100m free to ultimately grab the gold when it came to tonight’s main event.
SOSC’s Yang busted out a time of 48.47 to get to the wall half a second ahead of 18-year-old Flynn Southam who nailed 48.97. New Zealand’s Carter Swift also landed on the podium in 49.18 for bronze while Matt Temple finished 4th in 49.22.
As for Yang, tonight’s performance is par for the swimmer’s comeback course, with Yang registering a series of consistent swims since returning from back surgery before championship season in 2023.
Last month’s Australian Championships saw Yang post a personal best of 48.20 to put his countrymen on notice as a viable candidate to take a spot in the 1free on the Aussie roster for Paris.
Additional Winners
- The women’s 400m IM saw 17-year-old Arabella Bahr produce a time of 4:59.60 for the victory.
- Mark Nikolaev was too quick to catch in the men’s 50m back, hitting 25.23 to Ben Armbruster‘s runner-up result of 25.45. The 200m backstroke victor here, Kane Follows of New Zealand, bagged bronze in 25.79.
- Bailey Lello notched a winning effort of 28.17 to take the men’s 50m breast. Bond’ Joshua Collett secured silver in 28.27 as former world record holder in the 2breast, Zac Stubblety-Cook, was 3rd in 28.27.
- Visiting Olympian Rikako Ikee topped the women’s 50m fly podium in a solid 25.58, beating the field by over a second. Ikee logged 25.53 at last month’s Aussie Nationals for her best time of the season and was right near that tonight.
- Brittany Castelluzzo nabbed gold in the women’s 200m free, posting 1:58.89. 17-year-old Olivia Wunsch of Carlile turned in 1:59.38 and Chandler’s veteran Leah Neale earned bronze in 1:59.52 as a warm-up for next month’s Trials.
Here are a set of photographs taken at SPW this morning: @barbaravaliphotography
Note the mini Eiffel Tower beside the pool. Lol.
Will Petric 400IM – a 4:19 heat swim.
May not mean anything, but that is much quicker than his heat swim at Natl’s (4:25), where he then went 4:13.5.
Emerging as the current male counter-part to Ella Ramsay: young, on PB form, v similar events. 🙂
At 9.45 am I saw Channel 9 cross to the SPW pool and interview Boxall. My sister tells me at an earlier cross to the pool there was talk that Mollie O’Callaghan had swum a world record time this morning. They didn’t say which event.
I’m keen to hear 23/51/1:52’s report of what he witnessed at the pool this morning.
Did SPW publish the events schedule?
Guess it was the 200Fr – in which case she was against Arnie, Throssell, Forrester, Melverton, Barclay, et al?
Strange that there seems to be nothing on socials about it.
Someone needs to hurry home and get on here lol *taps foot impatiently* 😉
Not sure if they published an event schedule or not. My sister said that they said that Titmus had swum earlier which sounds like she might not have swum in that event but I’m really not sure.
I’m very keen to hear any first hand account of what happened at SPW this morning. So far I only have second hand channel 9 gossip.
I saw a live interview with a man on Facebook . They showed a bit of the set up. I don’t know who he was.
Mollie swam with Hugh Dolle, kai Taylor. Titmus swam with Ben Goedemans and Elijah Winnigton. Don’t know the event and a spectator said everyone swam pb…
LOL. Please don’t let this turn into “Kaylee swam multiple 26s in practice”. People got soooo mad.
But also pretty quiet now that’s she’s going multiple 26s in public.
Yes I think we would need a second more reliable source than a ch 9 entertainment reporter before we could say this is a real thing.
I always believed it even when people were laughing. I’m glad Kaylee ended up doing the times in public and shut everyone up.
It was not a conventional distance, but very quick. Mollie, Kai and Elijah were the standouts overall, I’ll say more when I get home.
Aaargh!!!
What a tease lol
Literally it would take 60 seconds to type out what it was 🙄. “No there wasn’t a WR time but she swam a very fast 150”. Not hard lol
1.23.0
Are you driving from Brisbane to Northern Rivers via Alice Springs? lol
Nothing too exciting so far this morning.
But I keep refreshing this page waiting for the SPW goss.
Ella Ramsay keeps on rolling!
1 sec faster than her seed time in the 100Fly (1:00.95) – not sure if that is a PB though.
Goes nicely with her 1:06.8Br, and 1:02.3Bk, at this meet!
PS. In Ella’s 4:36.94 400IM at Nationals, her 100Fly split was 1:03.01.
The other legs were:
1:11.7
1:16.9
1:05.3
Well on my way now from Northern NSW. Nice drizzle so far.
Are you driving to Sydney for this? That’s a big effort. Hope the final night is worth it!
Carry over from last thread, at the SPW event right now. Got a lot to say later.
Spill it 😉
Omg tell us now!
He better not be doing anything selfish like having breakfast first lol
Priorities 23/51 Priorities!!
I’ll say that they did warmup, then the Paris race sims, then a training set with Boxall mic’d up, then a team relay and skill set to close out.
A lot to unpack.
This is worse than clicking ‘refresh’ on live results for a few hours lol
Australia should hope to somehow get two women under the A cut for the 100 breast. Relying on one qualifier to be in form is dangerous, so they could really use the security blanket. They could always use Kaylee, but she’s going to be exhausted by the last day and isn’t by any means a guarantee to keep up with a US or Chinese swimmer in the 1:04s.
I’m hoping for a 1:05, but two 1:06 lows will do.
Although we probably don’t need two under the A cut. Strauch and Harkin will both be under the A cut for the 200. Ramsay will probably hit the 200 A cut as well based on her 100 improvement. So SOMEONE will be there.
Worst case scenario we’ll have 2 breaststrokers present in Paris with Kaylee as a backup I guess.
If our fastest 100 breast doesn’t hit the time standard they could take them anyway as relay only. We won’t use all our relay only spots on free as the 100 and 200 both have massive crossover with individuals (MOC, Jack, McKeon, Titmus, Pallister all but guaranteed individual spots,… Read more »
Pleasing to see someone, finally, scaring the WA A mark …. let’s face it, the AUS QT doesn’t look likely. Think the “we’ll take it” scenario may probably be:
Ramsey seems to be on form this year with a 400IM below both AUS & WA A marks and a 200M around 2.10mid.
A nice result in a low-key meet. Hopefully more to come.