Kyle Chalmers, one of the most promising youth swimmers on the rise down under, broke an Australian age group record for 15-year-olds at prelims of the Australia Age Group Championships.
Chalmers went 50.09 to win his age group and smash a record one year older than he is – Aussie legend Ian Thorpe set the mark at 50.21 all the way back in 1998, a 16-year-old record broken by the 15-year-old Chalmers.
The Marion swimmer had a pair of huge splits, nearly going out in 23 seconds (he split 24.1 to his feet) and coming home in 25.9.
This comes on the heels of a senior national meet that was fairly uneventful for Chalmers. Any worries about his performances at that meet seem pretty overblown now, as it appears Chalmers was saving his best stuff for the age group champs.
Full results of the age group championships can be found here.
Apparently he just broke his finger on Thursday night while practicing footy with his footy club.
I hope he stops playing footy and starts swimming training full time.
Congrats to Cherrybrook Carlile, all-round team effort in the 400 free relay to bring home the gold!!!
Wow, something in the water in the land down under? They are pumping out some fantastic talent. They’re going to have a dynasty of 100 free swimmers in the years to come.
The Australian men’s swimming team seemed to be dead for a few years, but the future looks bright. It’s exciting to watch.
Kyle ‘The Snake’ Chalmers. The wildebeest constricterrrrr!
His split is also incredibly mature:
r:+0.67 24.09 49.68 (25.59)
So it seems he is more of a back-end swimmer
49.68! 😯
Wow!
So now, it’s clear he wasn’t tapered for the Australian championships 2 weeks ago.
His 50 and 100 fly will be probably very fast too.
Most of you compare him with Thorpe but it looks like he is more a sprint specialist. 50 free/100 free/50 fly/100 fly. Will he swim the 200 in the future?
I don’t think anyone try to compare him with Thorpe, because Chalmers has always been clearly a sprint specialist.
It just happened that he broke a Thorpe’s record, which is always a big deal, and a testament to the greatness of Thorpe who swam incredible 100s although he was more of middle distance freestyler.
It will be strange and funny if in 2016 Rio Australia’s 4×100 free line up is:
Magnussen – Chalmers – McEvoy – Sullivan
15 yo Chalmers scorched 49.68!!!
This is breathtaking. Still trying to digest.
Australia swimming will certainly pray that Chalmers will not defect to Footy/Australian football.