Horton Set To Make Post-World C’ships Debut At Vic Open

2019 VICTORIAN OPEN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Saturday, September 14th & Sunda, September 15th
• Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Center (MSAC), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• SCM
• Heats at 9 am local/Finals at 5 pm local
• Meet Site
• Psych Sheet
• Live Results

The annual Victorian Open Short Course Championships are slated to get underway at the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre on Saturday, September 14th. The competition is set to include 59 events over 2 days, with a mix of both up-and-comers and established veterans taking to the MSAC pool.

Olympic champion Mack Horton is expected to make his post-World Championships debut at the Vic Open, however, the 23-year-old is entering in just the 800m free event. Horton finished 14th in this new Olympic event in Gwangju after having taken the silver medal behind China’s Sun Yang in the 400m free.

Horton was the Aussie swimmer who staged a podium protest for that 400m free at the World Championships, refusing to stand on the podium with Sun Yang or take pictures with the Chinese swimmer. Horton wound up receiving a written warning from FINA.

Another World Championships swimmer set to race this weekend is 24-year-old Jess Hansen. The breaststroking ace earned a silver medal in Gwangju as a member of her nation’s women’s medley relay, while also finishing 9th in the 100m breast, just .01 shy of making the final.

Hansen is set to race the 100m breast, 200m breast, 100m IM and 200m IM at the Vic Open this weekend.

Nunawading’s Matthew Temple is also among the entrants, with the World Championships finalist following up on his impressive performances in Gwangju. Temple clocked a massive time of 51.51 to finish 6th in the men’s 100m fly final and finished 9th in the 200m fly in 1:56.52.

Additional notable swimmers listed on the psych sheets are as follows:

MLC Aquatics – Gabrielle Peiniger, David Schlict, Noah Millard

Melbourne Vicentre – Jack Gerrard, Jordan Merrilees, Daniel Cave, Kotuku Ngawati

Nunawading – Bowen Gough

Northcoate – Jack Carr

Bayside – Nicholas Layton