On-Fire13-Yr-Old Grayson Coulter Posts 1:52.13 LCM 200 Freestyle

2025 QUEENSLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Saturday, December 13th – Friday, December 19th
• Brisbane Aquatic Centre
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap
• Live Results

Day six of the 2025 Queensland Championships was another showcase of Oceania’s rising talent among the age group set, with multiple records going down with just one more day of competition remaining.

After his showstopping performance in the boys’ 400m freestyle last night, 13-year-old Grayson Coulter ripped a time of 26.17 to take his age category’s 50m butterfly.

That beat the pack by over a second, with Commercial’s Paloch Naksang logging 27.26 as the runner-up and Chandler’s Hunter Bastow bagging the bronze in 27.62.

As for New Zealand’s Coulter, his time this evening overwrote the Queensland All Comers Record of 26.23 Japan’s Ikeda Eishin put on the books two years ago.

Coulter’s time tore his previous personal best of 26.58 to shreds. That former mark was set at the New Zealand Age Championships which took place in May.

Versatile Coulter also took on the 200m freestyle tonight as well, finding success with a monster time of 1:52.13.

That was another lifetime best for the teen, erasing the 1:53.67 he logged at the NZL Age Championships.

Tonight Coulter was far and away the decisive victor, with the next-closest competitor, Elijah Strahan, earning silver over 10 seconds back in 2:03.78. Hugo Wheeler rounded out the podium in 2:04.58.

Coulter’s swim destroyed the former Australian All Comers Record of 1:54.86 Aussie Thomas Hauck established in 2016. All Comers Records represent the fastest time produced by a swimmer from any nation but on Australian soil.

Splits for Coulter included:

26.24
54.47 (28.23)
1:23.56 (29.09)
1:52.13 (28.57)

For perspective, Coulter’s 1:52.13 outing would render the Kiwi the 3rd-fastest American 13-14-year-old boy in history. Luka Mijatovic owns the American NAG at 1:49.63 from last year and Thomas Heilman was as fast as 1:51.27 in that age category.

Making noise in the 16-year-old boys’ 1500m freestyle was Chandler’s dynamo Lincoln Wearing.

Following up on his head-turning performance including a new Aussie age record of 7:56.80 in the 800m free, Wearing ripped a new lifetime best of 15:18.98 tonight.

That scorched his previous PB of 15:26.14 notched at this April’s Australian Age Championships and rewrote the Queensland All Comers Record. That former benchmark was put up by Jordan Harrison 14 years ago in 2011.

Finally, 16-year-old Leny Grigor of Somerset put his stamp on the evening with a new Queensland All Comers Record in his age category’s 200m IM event.

Grigor touched in 2:02.70 to slice .01 off the 2:02.71 record Hauck notched in 2019.

Nudgee College’s Daniel Van Luik secured silver in 2:06.50 and New Zealand’s Roman Anderson collected bronze in 2:10.48 in the event.

Additional Notes

• Ben Armbruster took the men’s 50m butterfly in a result of 23.40. That held a healthy advantage over two Koreans in Ji Yuchan and Yang Jaehoon, with the former hitting 23.76 to the latter’s 24.01. Armbruster’s personal best remains at the 23.00 put up this summer.
• St. Peters Western’s Jaclyn Barclay was the winner of the women’s 18-year-old 50m fly event. She touched in 27.59 for the gold. The open category saw 21-year-old Chloe Rowe-Hagans post 26.27 as the top performer. Her time crushed her previous best ever performance of 26.97 from April. Behind her tonight was Ai Soma of Japan who touched in 26.52 and 19-year-old Mackenzie Burns also landed on the podium in 26.74, good enough for the bronze.
• The 16-year-old boys’ 50m fly saw Brisbane Grammar’s Maxwell Cunningham establish a new Queensland Age Record of 24.39 and become the #3 performer of his age category of all time. He was one of two sub-25 second performers, with Connor Burgess joining him in 24.99. Julian Angus of TSS Aquatic logged 25.15 for a 3rd-place finish.