The 2025 Australian Swimming Trials are on the horizon, set to kick off in Adelaide, Australia, from June 9 through June 14. The competition will serve as the official qualifier for the World Aquatics Championships, which will take place in Singapore, running from July 26 to August 3.
Swimming Australia has recently amended its selection criteria for Worlds, following the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) announcement that 50-meter stroke events (backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly) will be added to the Olympic program. As a result, these events are now being treated with the same priority as all other individual events at the Trials. This means that the top two finishers in each final who achieve the qualifying standard will be selected for the World Championships team.
This marks a significant shift from the previous policy, where only the swimmer who touched first was eligible for selection in the stroke 50s. Swimming Australia initially signaled the change by posting a version of the criteria with crossed-out text (pictured below), which has since been replaced by a new policy.
The revised selection framework is outlined below:
Individual Olympic Events:
- Swimmers who place within the top 2 in the final at Trials who swim faster than the Swimming Australia qualifying time.
- If only the winner of the final swims faster than the Swimming Australia qualifying time, only they are eligible to be selected for the event.
- If no swimmer in the final swims faster than the qualifying time, a swimmer who qualifies for the team in a different event if they have “met any applicable World Aquatics qualification time(s) for the relevant event.”
Medley Relays:
- The highest and second-highest ranked swimmers in each of the stroke 100s will be eligible for selection to the team in the medley relay.
- Swimming under the Swimming Australia qualifying time does not guarantee an athlete selection in a relay event – selection is at the sole discretion of the selection panel.
- No additional athletes will be selected solely for the purpose of competing in the mixed 4×100 medley relay.
Freestyle Relays:
- First and second place finishers in the 100 and 200 freestyle finals will be selected to the team.
- Third – eighth place finishers in the 100 and 200 freestyles will be considered for selection as “relay-only” swimmers. The following factors are considered:
- Past relay performances
- Past relay skills
- Performances at previous domestic and international events
- Any other factors the SA Selection Committee considers relevant
Non-Olympic Events (Mixed 4×100 Freestyle Relay):
- The National Head Coach will decide who, if anyone, races in the mixed 4×100 freestyle relay at World Championships.
Each section of the selection criteria is qualified by the fact that the selection panel has absolute discretion. That means that the aforementioned criteria will most likely be used, but if something unexpected happens, the panel can us their discretion to fill out the team.
Additionally, there is no automatic selection criteria for the World Championships based on, for example, results at last summer’s Olympic Games.
Swimming Australia’s World Championship Qualifying Times:
| Selection Event | Men | Women |
| 50 Freestyle | 21.94 | 24.72 |
| 100 Freestyle | 48.34 | 54.16 |
| 200 Freestyle | 1:46.70 | 1:58.23 |
| 400 Freestyle | 3:47.54 | 4:10.23 |
| 800 Freestyle | 7:48.66 | 8:34.62 |
| 1500 Freestyle | 15:01.89 | 16:24.56 |
| 50 Backstroke | 24.81 | 27.74 |
| 100 Backstroke | 53.93 | 1:00.40 |
| 200 Backstroke | 1:57.98 | 2:10.51 |
| 50 Breaststroke | 27.06 | 30.33 |
| 100 Breaststroke | 59.75 | 1:06.87 |
| 200 Breaststroke | 2:10.32 | 2:25.91 |
| 50 Butterfly | 23.05 | 25.77 |
| 100 Butterfly | 51.62 | 57.90 |
| 200 Butterfly | 1:56.03 | 2:09.21 |
| 200 IM | 1:59.05 | 2:11.96 |
| 400 IM | 4:17.48 | 4:43.06 |
Sam Williamson’s season ended by a horror injury the happened doing a box jump. That’s also why he pulled out of Mare Nostrum.
https://x.com/_zacharygates/status/1927626889977589902
Jumped onto SwimSwam to see if this had been reported….. Awful news for him 🙁
Australian swimming’s qualifying times are ridiculous. Seriously! Whoever is involved in setting them needs to be moved on. Seiben and Armstrong would never have made the team with these over the top qualifying times and they swam the 2 greatest Aussie swims ever for Olympic glory. What is wrong with swimming Australia?
they’re using the world aquatics times
They’re not quite the same. The form stroke 50s in particular are faster but even a few of the other events are slightly faster.
These Aussie QT times are relatively much softer than in previous Olympics and World Champs – where the 8th / time required to make previous years final was used.
Strange why it’s has been relaxed for 25 Worlds… perhaps post Olympic retirements and breaks (eg Titmus) SA wanted to blood some youngsters who would otherwise just miss the cut but still withinWorld Acquatics time.
If I remember right they used softer standards in 2022 as well
Entry lists for trials are out…
No Iona Anderson or Henry Allan that I can see, though they could be added later.
no williamson, cartwright or jes
Surely most of these with be added as late entries but perhaps not Cartwright who’s barely competed since Paris. Neill is missing too and hasn’t competed since Paris.
Edwards-Smith and Se-bom Lee added. The others still missing from final entries ☹️
This could cause some selection problems for us. We don’t typically have athletes covering broad ranges of events in Aus on the male side.
Should have just made 1 spot available for each 50 specifically, and then the second 50 spot can be filled by whoever is the next fastest at the 50 who is already on the roster.
What do you mean? We shouldn’t get close to filling the roster. The men often leave off 5th or 6th in freestyle relay events even when there’s room for them.
Of the 6 new roster “event spots” added for the stroke 50s, it seems likely at least 50% of them will go to someone who’s qualified in another event anyway. Cam, Kyle, Sam, maybe even Henry Allan could qualify in multiple + a stroke 50
They were surprisingly quick to make the change publishing the updated selection criteria about a month ago
Yeah, we are used to top 10 rankings on the website being updated very irregularly. And some swims missing etc. I thought the I.T person was only employed once a year 🙂