2023 AUSTRALIAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TRIALS
- Tuesday, June 13th – Sunday, June 18th
- Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Center
- LCM (50m)
- World Championships Selection Criteria
- Meet Central
- Start List
With the release of the start list for next month’s Australian World Championship Trials, we now know who will and who will not be competing at the elite World Championships-qualifying event.
We reported earlier today how 31-year-old Cate Campbell is opting out of the domestic competition due to having a cold, although the speedster had earlier said she would forego Fukuoka even if she had made the Aussie squad.
After further combing through the entrants, however, there are several other key green and gold team members who will be absent from Melbourne.
24-year-old Yang recently revealed that he will soon be undergoing back surgery to address a benign tumor on his spine.
Yang represented Australia at the 2022 Commonwealth Games where he took home two gold medals from relays. He also placed 5th in the men’s 100m freestyle event.
Prior to that, the New South Wales Institute of Sport swimmer claimed gold in the mixed medley relay and silver in the men’s 4x100m free relay at the 2022 World Championships.
His absence opens the door for another potential would-be 100m freestyle individual finalist, as well as a potential slot on the men’s 4x100m free relay.
Zac Incerti‘s absence is more of a mystery, with the 26-year-old having had a viable shot at both the individual 100m free, as well as a spot on the men’s 4x100m free relay.
Incerti represented Australia in Tokyo where the ace helped his nation score bronze in both the 4x100m free and 4x200m free relays.
At last year’s Commonwealth Games, Incerti also was a big-time relay contributor, assisting in the gold medal results of the aforementioned squads in addition to the 4x100m mixed free event.
Since then, however, the former Marion swimmer-turned-USC Spartan has been relatively quiet, with his last known competition represented by the 2022 Queensland Championships in December. At that competition, Incerti clocked times of 50.11 in the 100m free and 1:49.16 in the 200m free.
We’ve reached out to Incerti in the past to inquire about his status but have not yet received a response.
We reported earlier this month that short course World Record holder Minna Atherton is currently dealing with an injury and her participation in these Trials was touch-and-go.
However, she is indeed absent from the start list, which closes the door on any World Championships hopes.
The 23-year-old short course World Record holder’s last meet was the Sydney Open in early May where she posted times of 27.64 in the 50 free, 58.59 in the 100 free and 30.24 in the 50 back. Her lifetime bests sit at 25.72, 56.42 and 27.49, respectively.
Atherton, who trains under Chris Mooney at Bond University, was third in all three women’s backstroke events at the 2022 Australian Nationals, missing the World Championship team after winning three medals, including gold in the mixed 400 medley relay and silver individually in the 100 back, in 2019.
Atherton did qualify to represent Australia at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, however, where she finished fourth in the 100 back (1:00.02) and 200 back (2:09.40).
24-year-old Jack Cartwright competed at last year’s World Championships, helping Australia score gold in the 4x100m mixed free relay and silver in the men’s 4x100m free relay.
However, Cartwright will not get a chance to repeat his performances as he is not competing in Melbourne.
As a refresher, the St. Peters Western standout dropped out of the 2019 World Championships Trials due to a nagging shoulder injury. Perhaps that has begun to rear its head again. We’ve reached out to Cartwright for comment.
In the meantime, Cartwright’s latest competition came at this year’s non-selection Australian National Championships. He produced times of 22.69 in the 50m free, 49.35 in the 100m free, and 1:50.59 in the 200m free.
26-year-old Jenna Strauch is another surprise withdrawal from these World Championship Trials.
The Richard Scarce-trained breaststroke star has been on an upward trajectory, securing medals both at last year’s long course and short course World Championships. At the former, Strauch captured silvers in the individual 200m breast and the medley relay while at the latter she claimed gold and silver in medley relays.
As with Cartwright, she, too, raced at last month’s Aussie National Championships and didn’t look out of her element. She clocked times of 31.16 in the 50m breast, 1:08.16 in the 100m breast and 2:25.94 in the 200m breast. Her career-best marks sit at 30.77, 1:06.37 and 2:23.12, respectively.
Two-time individual world champion backstroke Mitch Larkin is still struggling to find his footing after ranking among the world’s best.
The national record holder followed his 2015 gold medals in the 100m and 200m back with a silver medal-worthy 200m back performance in Rio and claimed 100m back bronze at the 2019 World Championships.
However, Larkin came up empty at the 2020 Olympic Games which sparked a move from coach Dean Boxall at St. Peters Western. The 29-year-old landed at Chandler and has been trying to recapture his previous career-best times since.
Larkin raced at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and placed 11th in the 50m back (25.53), 6th in the 100m back (54.30) and 4th in the 200m back (1:56.91). He also finished 9th in the 200m IM with a time of 2:01.59 in Birmingham.
Birmingham appears to have been the last time that Larkin has raced, as he opted out of last month’s National Championships.
Here is every Oceanic/World Record that is feasibly within reach at Trials, listed in psych sheet order:
W200IM – OC
W400F – OC/WR
W100BK – WR
W200F – OC/WR
W200BK – WR
M100F – OC
M50BK – OC
W800F – OC
M200BR – WR
W50BK – OC
M100FLY – OC
W1500F – OC
Mind you, there are a few others that I think are a bit too aspirational right now, but could happen. If anyone is to make a fool of me, I hope it is Short.
Looking at this list it sounds amazing… but there’s also the possibility that none of it happens. The ones on the list that I am really bullish on are M50 Back, W50 back and W1500 Free.
I made a list of potential gold chances at Worlds and landed on 15. That sounds like a lot… but it’s quite possible we convert only a third or less.
Is this your super optimistic 15 golds?
Men
100 FR
400 FR
800 FR
200 BR
Women
50 FR
100 FR
200 FR
400 FR
50 BK
100 BK
200 BK
200 IM
4×100 FR
4×200 FR
Mixed
4×100 FR
Close! I had the women’s medley relay (although that seems possibly shot now) instead of the Men’s 800 free. Short would need to drop another 3 seconds from a recent PB to be in the conversation for gold. However, the women’s medley, even with a 1:07 breast split could win if the other legs are all very good (but not even mindblowing):
Kaylee: 57.50 (Flat PB 57.45)
Harkin: 1:07.00 (Flat PB 1:06.88)
McKeon: 55.90 (Flat PB 55.72)
MOC/Jack: 52.00 (Flat PB 52.49)
=3:52.40
Winning time last year was 3:53.78 and winning time in Tokyo was 3:51.60.
If we give Kaylee her flat start PB and the rest their flat -0.5, it comes to 3:51.04 which would… Read more »
I’m figuring tapered Short is gonna drop more time and be in contender territory. It’d be pretty unusual for a male distance swimmer to not drop any time with taper.
Harder for distance swimmers to improve on the trials times though. A double taper for a distance swimmer in 6 weeks is rough.
Perhaps he’ll only do a partial taper and just hope it’s enough in the 400 because he has no competition in the 800 and 1500.
Reported elsewhere:
Jenna Strauch has been carrying a knee problem that has hindered her prep so she’s just gonna focus on Paris.
C1 is considering racing at World Cups later in the year and at Doha Worlds.
I hope she recovers well. It’s really bad luck that 100 Breast was already a problem in Aus and now we’ve lost our two best in that event. Harkin may be our only female breaststroker at Worlds.
I think we still have a chance of a podium finish this summer for Paris qualification. If not, we need a decent relay team at next year’s WC.
Podium still remains highly likely as the field DOES drop away considerably once you get beyond USA/AUS.
CAN BRS remains weaker than AUS; Masse has not appeared to be in 2021/sub 58 form and question marks over Oleksiak’s form. McNeill remains their one ace card.
SWE lack a backstroker of any note.
CHN can maybe medal if CAN has an off day
As yet, GBR lacks any ace cards
AUS should still auto-qualify this relay for Paris.
Oh I haven’t written off a podium finish at all. Losing the breast just means we can’t win gold. Last year we still got silver with much weaker performances than Tokyo:
-Kaylee was 0.7 slower
-Strauch was 0.4 slower than Hodges in Tokyo
-Throssell was 1.3 slower than McKeon in Tokyo
-MOC was 0.2 slower than Cate
With Kaylee back on form, Emma back on fly and our free looking strong as ever, we should still comfortably podium unless the breast is like a 1:08.
Imagine if Mollie turned into a 57 backstroker by next year and also Kaylee into a 1:05 breaststroker 🤔
We’d have the first ever 52/57 Free/Back combo and the first ever 57/1:05 Back/Breast combo.
I don’t see Kaylee ever seriously pursuing breast but it’s ridiculous how good she is at it considering the 100/200 breast are maybe her like 7th/8th best events? And we’re yet to see her swim them with a proper taper.
But yeah if MOC did manage to crack a similar 100 back to Kaylee and Kaylee managed to crack a similar 100 breast to our breast girls then legitimately we could have them swim those in the medley.
As someone has posted previously an MOC/Kaylee/Emma/Madi medley would be the 100 WC swimming back, the 100 back WR holder swimming breast, the 100 free OC swimming… Read more »
Re Jenna – She already posted on IG to confirmed this
happy to see that Madi is entered in the 100 back, I don’t think she’s swam it since Olympic Trials and it could be helpful for medley relay heats because Kaylee swam heats and finals last year
Cartwright is in Cairns with SPW right now. Melverton posted a picture on IG one hour ago. Maybe his lack of entry is a mistake?
Maybe he’s injured again (hope not) and he just went along anyway (his girlfriend is there)?
I hope SS can find out what’s up with bim and Strauch.
So Hodges, Yang, Atherton were all expected with their medical issues. Larkin and Incerti have been AWOL (but still training) so I somewhat expected to see them but I guess they’re not crazy surprises. But Strauch and Cartwright are both massive surprises to me. Neither has been super fast in-season but I am shocked that they’re not attending trials. Cartwright can potentially be covered because Southam/Taylor seem to be stepping up this year, but without either of our W100 Breast options the women’s medley is cooked.
While I’m here, let’s put out predictions (most of them are pretty uncontroversial). In two weeks we can see how wrong I was!
WOMEN
50 Free
Spoiler: Harris
100 Free… Read more »
Wunsch Casey Jansen are 6 months of development from making any senior team…….but I hope I’m seriously wrong
I hope they just save their taper for junior worlds.
I hope at least one of them goes to Paris.
Not a guarantee by any means.
These are placings rather than qualifiers? Because some of these will miss the QTs.
Are you really expecting Madi Wilson to miss the team or did you just forget she exists?
Moesha Johnson might get that second spot for the 1500 given she’s already been sub 16 this year in Germany.
These are just placings. There are multiple events where we probably won’t qualify anyone.
OMG Madi! I knew I was missing something. Yes she will be on both relays, I don’t know how I missed her. The lists were in alphabetical order by surname so she was at the end of every list. Psych sheets in time order would have been useful.
And yeah good point re Johnson.
I think Madi will only make prelims this year. The top four for the 4×1 seems pretty set but I think Pallister will take the fourth spot now McKeon is out.
It’s kind of crazy to think Wilson was in 5 World Record breaking relay finals last year and that this year she won’t even make the finals!
Wilson’s PB in the 200 is 0.6 faster than Pallister but Pallister is definitely on the rise.
Top 3 for both free relays seems to be McKeon/MOC/Jack and Titmus/MOC/Jack but who do you have as your 4th in the 100? Harris? Harris often underperforms in the 100 free relay while Wilson tends to overperform. I believe Wilson’s fastest ever split was 52.25 last year, while Harris’s fastest ever is a 52.73. Harris has only ever split 52s in prelims, never in a final.
Even if Harris beats Wilson in the individual I… Read more »
I’m just expecting Harris to finish top four at trials but I guess it’s possible they’ll choose Wilson for the final.
Harris’s fastest is 52.59 from the mixed free prelims at CWGs and she did go that monster split at short course worlds in the medley relay.
Aside from that one 52.2 Madi is usually 52.6+.
Expecting big year for Harris this year.
Funny they are team mates at Marion.
Harris would be a top 2 sprinter in any other country, here she is struggling to swim anything besides relays.
W100/200 free have been real tearjerkers in recent quads because of our depth, many Olympic level women never get a chance even though they are more than capable of the standard.
Why didn’t McKeown swim the final? That day does not conflict with another event and he will swim 5/6 days so he has the last one free
She probably won’t be fast enough to make the top 4.
These are the events that, at least at first glance, appear problematic as regards qualification; be that any qualifier or a 2nd qualifier.
M50FR – QT 21.83. McEvoy and maybe Nowakowski are some shot but far from assured. FINA A of 22.12 should see at least 1 through
M100FR – QT 47.96 . Chalmers has this covered but problematic for everyone else but a soft FINA A (48.51) will be no issue
M1500 – QT 14.56.86 No issues for Short but there’s no one else in the same post code even with a FINA A of 15.04.64
M100BK – QT 53.00 Barring some miraculous renaissance from Cooper, this ain’t happening. FINA A (54.03) is soft which should allow at least… Read more »
It doesn’t much matter how fast the QT is for the men’s 100 free because they’re sending a relay worth of 100 freestylers and the top two will get the individuals as long as they’re under the FINA A.
Where possible they will have to take two of each 100 stroke because of relay qualification for Paris. If they only take one and they get injured or sick then the medley relay can’t even compete let alone qualify.
I think the 2IM QT might be possible for Neill with a taper (1:58.99 at nationals).
For the most part, I agree. The majority of events listed are only problematic in the context of the Swim AUS QT (which really only seem tough due to the relative weaknesses AUS possesses in said events)
Do think 2nd qualifier may still be problematic (even using FINA A) for W100BRS, M100BRS & M100BK.
I agree. The only way we don’t get at least 2 for every 100 stroke is if we don’t get two A cuts… which really is only a legitimate concern for women’s 100 breast. In which case Kaylee legitimately would need to swim the breast leg if Harkin became sick or injured. Wilson and ZSC both already have the A cut for the 200 breast so worst case scenario Wilson would be brought along as a spare relay swimmer but counted as an individual for the 200 breast.
Agree that the M200BRS qualifiers will yet again be seconded for 4XMED. There are a couple of sub 1.08s in the W100BRS so FINA A only being 1.07.35, a 2nd qualifier is not out of the question. Still think there may be only one FINA A clearance in M100BK; would love to be proven wrong.
Being completely honest, I doubt McKeon will make the individual 100 free. If she was in the form required to go below 52.5, she would’ve been sub 53 already this year.
Yeah that’s fair. But she hasn’t swum a rested meet yet. She had a pretty quiet LCM year last year but then wiped the floor at SCM (even though she is a better long course swimmer).
I still have faith but yeah it wouldn’t be a massive upset for her to be 3rd.
Chelsea Hodges?
Injured – recovering from hip surgery
No Clyde Lewis ?
He wasn’t competed since SC worlds.
Surprised that Cate Campbell would pull out due to colds..
Zac Incerti is an interesting one, is it an injury or is it another mental health issue? who knows .. same as Isaac Cooper with his cryptic social media posts…
Its looking more and more likely that Kaylee will be our main breastroker this year unless someone new steps up
Campbell said from the start she wasn’t attending even if she qualified so why push herself through an illness when she’s already done a bunch of racing and will do more later in the year?
I follow Incerti on inst but don’t see his stuff much. Cooper does post about mental health stuff but I feel like he’s pretty positive overall. I am hopeful he’ll have a good year.
Kaylee won’t be swimming breast. Harkin will be the only female selected (no one else is even close to QT at any distance). There is the “Kaylee breast on medley relay” option but the only way that makes sense is if Harkin bombs.
Incerti’s rehabbing his shoulder – hopes to be back and competitive for Paris trials.