2021 SWIMMING AUSTRALIA OLYMPIC TRIALS
- Saturday, June 12th – Thursday, June 17th
- South Australia Aquatic & Leisure Centre, Adelaide, Australia
- Sole Olympic-Qualifying Opportunity
- 2021 Swimming Australia Olympic Nomination Criteria
- Meet Site
- Final Start List
- Live results
- Qualifying Criteria
- Day 4 Finals Live Stream (Amazon Prime required)
While competing on day 4 of the 2021 Australian Olympic Trials, 22-year-old Zac Stubblety-Cook threw down the swim of his life in the men’s 200m breaststroke to punch his ticket to Tokyo.
The Vince Raleigh-trained athlete rocketed to a time of 2:06.28, a mark which represents the 2nd fastest performance in history, sitting only being the current World Record of 2:06.12 from the 2019 FINA World Championships.
Just last month Stubblety-Cook put up a personal best of 2:07.00 at the Sydney Open as a preview to tonight’s head-turner. In his post-race interview from Adelaide, hear how that earlier performance helped fuel his confidence and give him the boost needed to put ht world on notice with Tokyo on the horizon.
He also speaks about the fact that one-time World Record holder in this event, Matt Wilson, missed out on qualification as he placed 2nd behind Stubblety-Cook. Wilson settled for silver in a time of 2:08.52, despite having beaten the Aussie QT of 2:08.28 on at least 7 separate occasions, including his 2:06.68 World Record that stayed on paper for just a few hours in Gwangju at the World Championships.
Super cool guy , humble and motivated
It would not surprise me if they take Wilson , Cook being more of a 200 specialist they may prefer Wilson in the medley relay
Well they did race head to head in the 100 and Wilson didn’t even come second and don’t even break 1 minute … so it would be hard to explain taking him for that reason
Anton and Zac have similar sleight builds and swim the race similarly!
Can we talk about the ridiculous concept suit by Speedo, why do they think we’re gonna go back to supersuits, and did the marvel comic book artists design it? I know comments were blocked on that article (https://swimswam.com/speedos-fastskin-4-0-the-future-of-fast/) , but that won’t stop me from clowning on the FastSkin 4.0
Had to double check if this was April 1st or not…
Why does Australia have qualifying times that differ from the Olympic qualifying times? Seems a shame to not take someone like Matt Wilson who could very well medal.
They want race tough swimmers in the team .. If they lower the qualifying standard as you say then the team will be full of people “just happy to make the team” and eliminated after heats
Swimming is about racing skills in the end and handling that race pressure … not just training and training and avoiding competition and only surface during Olympics
Funny how the US never has to worry about that
It happen in the USA
The US has far more depth then Australia by a fairly long way. The US are by far the most dominant swimming nation in the world, they have depth & you see they cover just about all events.
This is why Australia does what it does.
USA is the only swimming nation with the depth across the board that can guarantee to have 2 qualifiers in every event on both male and female side AND most likely have one or both make the final.
Not only that, USA Swimming has the financial resources no one else can match whereas in most countries its a case of making the most out of what decreasing $$$ they have.
AUS has never had that kind of depth or spread of talent. They’ve probably the 2nd broadest spread but there are still likely to be events where they will only have one (at most) qualifier and there is likely to be at least 5-6 events where they have no finalists… Read more »
The US has weaker qualifying standards. Wilson would’ve made the American QT.
Also the US didn’t even have 2 people under the FINA A standard in the 400 free!
They have the idea that constantly decreasing QTs will make people swim faster. It’s all the way down to age swimming as well, where frequently we see events where only 10-15 kids can qualify for states.
I think you’re overlooking the major problem facing AUS Swimming, and AUS Olympic sports in general. The ever increasing expense of supporting a competitive swimmer/athlete etc is such that its becoming prohibitive for the less affluent (even with support from various bodies …which is decreasing). Hence, they are now drawing from an ever shrinking potential talent pool. Its essentially now a sport for the more affluent/private schools background.
Add this to the reality that $$$ from state & federal govts is declining, and private sector $$$ generally transient; Swim AUS & states are now having to make do with less.
They’re far from the only country who sets their own standards above and beyond FINA’s A standard. This is not all the way across the board; in events where they may have depth and, in particular, swimmers who are considered contenders in their events, they set a level equating to what made the final in that event at the previous World Championships. For those where the AUS standard isn’t high; the FINA A mark is the qualifying time.
IS this such an unrealistic expectation when in most cases, these swimmers have PBs better than these marks, in some cases multiple times ? Wilson has done so multiple such times; he just didn’t deliver.
AUS has had problems in the past… Read more »
For those who do not understand why Australia has such high standards, I think CW just nailed it above.
The disrespect to the swimmers is sickening