Grant Hackett has continued to perform well in his comeback to the pool, finishing third in the 400 metres freestyle at the Swimming Australia Grand Prix meet in Townsville.
Hackett swam a time of 3:53.39 to finish behind Australian 400m and 1500m champion Mack Horton, who charged home over the final 100m to win in 3:52.55 from New Zealander Matthew Stanley and Hackett.
While neither Hackett nor Horton produced a great time, that wasn’t the case for London Olympian Jess Ashwood, who set a new Australian Open record in the women’s 1500m freestyle.
The 22-year-old London Olympian clocked a time of 15:56.86 to take 4.67 off Melissa Gorman’s previous Australian mark of 16:01.53, set in 2010, as the Australian Dolphins go through their paces in the countdown to this year’s FINA’s World Championships in August in Kazan, Russia.
The swim also obliterated her personal best by 17.61 seconds to set the second-fastest time in the world this year.
Ashwood has been selected to contest the 400m and 800m freestyle for Kazan and might be adding the 1500m to her repertoire.
Ashwood was shocked by the time and her achievement.
“I didn’t expect it so I’m very happy with it and probably means I won’t have much of a taper leading into the world championships,” Ashwood said.
“I have been doing a lot of training and a lot of distance training and that’s all I was thinking about – I’ve done all these kilometres, surely I can do 1500m? It was really good to do that tonight.
“I haven’t done a 1500m for a really long time so it was tough going; the hardest thing is not knowing whether I’m going too fast or too slow. I knew I just had to descend the 500s.
“It has certainly given me a lot of faith going into Kazan.”
In other events, Emma McKeon bagged a brace of wins, taking out the 100m butterfly and the 200m freestyle in a time of 1:57.56, defeating Bronte Barratt (1:57.83) and Ashwood in third.
Dual Olympian Emily Seebohm took the 200m backstroke and Mitch Larkin won the men’s 100m backstroke by more than a second from Josh Beaver and Ben Treffers.
CW
Guest
Swimming does not appear to have much of a following on the Roar. What about rowing. Have not seen a thread. So will post here. Aussie Kim Crow showed she is well on track for a gold medal at the Rio Olympics. She blitzed a strong field to win the women's single scull at a world cup meet in Italy yesterday. In fact the green and golds are having a strong overall meet.
CW
Guest
Aussie swimming is looking in great shape with the Olympics just over a year off. We will really see where we are travelling in the world in Russia next month. Lots os exciting young pups coming thru to join our established champions.