A good portion of Australia’s elite swimming is concentrated in New South Wales (think Sydney), and with the NSW Swimming State Championship meet coming up, be ready for an explosion of entered talent that will blow away the other, smaller championships that we’ve seen the past month (like the South Australia championships last week that James Magnussen shredded).
This race is going to be similar to what we saw at the Austin Grand Prix in the United States three weeks ago – anybody who’s anybody in Australian swimming will be there, save for a few exceptions (Ian Thorpe being the notable one).
A full recap will be coming next week, but among those on the entry list include Stephanie Rice, who 6 weeks ago had a 2nd surgery on the same right shoulder that underwent a major repair in 2010.
All signs are that her return to training has gone well, but the timing of the relapse couldn’t have been worse ahead of March’s Olympic Trials.
Rice hasn’t backed down from her tough event schedule though. She’s entered in the 200 and 400 IM’s, the 100 fly, and the 200 free. The glaring omission is the 200 fly: an event that she’s never won a major championship medal in but also one of the more medal-friendly events at this year’s Olympics (and one in which she ranked 6th in the world in 2011).
My feeling is that this schedule will look more similar to that which she will attack at trials and subsequent Olympics. I think she’ll try individually to qualify for the IM races (there’s little known competition in those races domestically), and swim the 100 fly and 200 free in an attempt to earn relay qualifications.
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Barring upset of most serious proportion (think Thorpe’s 400 free 2004 olympics trials), Rice should qualify in the 400 IM.
However, 200 IM wll be her most gutsiest swim if she want to represent Australia in the event.
I think Blair Evans could be “smokin” in the IM’s – she could be the one who upsets the apple cart this year.
in 200IM, there’ll be Coutts, Seebohm, Evans, and in 400IM there’ll be Evans and Hammill. I think that’s not what we can call “little known competition”. 🙂
You cant say little competition in the IMs when coutts is in there! (at least for the 200)
Frank – they actually offer two spots per event, so having only one competitor means there’s little competition for a spot.
shanmac – good point on Evans. Her recent efforts slipped my mind. Still, Rice was 7 seconds faster than any other Aussie in the 400 IM in 2011, so taking one of the two spots shouldn’t be much of a problem (at least relative to most Australian events).