2021 QUEENSLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Saturday, December 11th – Friday, December 17th
- Brisbane Aquatic Centre
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Entries
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
- Results
Two men’s backstroke age records bit the dust at these 2021 Queensland Championships, with Olympian Isaac Cooper and rising ace Joshua Edwards-Smith getting it done.
First, 17-year-old Cooper of Rackley produced a new lifetime best of 24.59 in the 50m backstroke to take his age category’s gold medal today. That not only overtook his previous career-quickest of 24.69 from this past May but it also established a new Australian National Age Record.
Yesterday it was 18-year-old Joshua Edwards-Smith‘s turn, taking on the men’s 200m back. Placing runner-up behind winner Mitch Larkin‘s 1:55.97, Edwards-Smith clocked a time of 1:57.09.
For Griffith’s Edwards-Smith, his result checks in as the mna’s first-ever mark under the 2:00 threshold. Splitting 57.20/59.89, he dipped under the previous National Age Record of 1:57.90 Larkin put on the books back in 2015.
Just for perspective, Edwards-Smith’s 1:57.09 performance would render the teen as the 7th fastest American 17-18-year-old male in history.
Also in the water today was two-time individual Olympic gold medalist Ariarne Titmus, as the St. Peters Western superstar placed 4th in the women’s 1500m free with a time of 16:24.84.
The top woman in the race was 24-year-old Moesha Johnson who scored a time of 16:01.66, the 2nd best performance of her career.
The men’s 800m free saw Tommy Neill take over the top of the podium, with the Rackley 19-year-old stopping the clock in a time of 7:57.52 as the only competitor to get under 8:02 in the race.
I guess SwimSwam have given up on new Qld Champs threads.
Oh well – congrats Lizzy Deckers anyway.
Olympia Pope was only 0.10 off another age record in the heats today this time the 100 breast and pretty snappy in the 50.
Also thought Mollie’s 4:08 yesterday in the 400 free was pretty interesting. I wonder what she could’ve done in her Tokyo form? Her stroke seems made for mid distance.
Kyle Chalmers apparently undergoing his shoulder surgery today.
I think Cooper’s 24.59 is very close to Ben Treffers open record of 24.54. It’s also a qld record.
Btw I wish Swimming Australia updated their Top 10 rankings faster than every 20 months or so. Sigh. Ridiculous.
Yes, it’s very annoying. There’s no reason the PDF updates can’t be automated or even have the rankings queried directly from the results database. Surely they have such basic expertise available to them that can set this up and it would also eliminate the errors in the rankings like Mollie being listed twice in the 100 free 15 year old rankings.
The entire Swimming Australia website is a shambles put together by someone who knows absolutely nothing about the sport. And every ‘upgrade’ is put together by someone who knows even less.
This isn’t Josh Edwards-Smith’s first time under 2:00. He’d already been 1:57.78 at 16 years old and that was already faster than the 17 and 18 year old age records. Here’s the article for the 16 year old age record:
https://swimswam.com/joshua-edwards-smith-lowers-own-aussie-age-record-in-200back/