Saturday Night’s Alright Alright But No Sunday Finals For McLoughlin And Stubblety-Cook

Zac Medal shots 1
ABREAST OF THE TIMES: Olympic hope Zac Stubblety-Cook will only swim the heats of the 200m breaststroke at the Victorian State Championships. Photo courtesy Medal Shots.

Chandler Olympic hopes Jack McLoughlin and Zac Stubblety-Cook will head home to Brisbane tomorrow after their successful hit and run mission to the Victorian State Championships Melbourne.

Jack McLoughlin at poolside

CLOSE SHAVE: Jack McLouglin claim gold in the 200m freestyle…just. Photo Courtesy: Martin Philbey Photography.

The 25-year-old McLoughlin added his second and third wins of the meet in the 200m (1:50.39) and 800 metres freestyle (7:56.96) to his opening night victory in the 400 metres (3:50.38) while 21-year-old Stubblety-Cook was an impressive winner in the 100m breaststroke (1:00.52).

But instead of staying in Melbourne for the last finals session, McLoughlin, Stubblety-Cook and coach Vince Raleigh will return home to resume training.

“We won’t be swimming the PM finals and will return home at lunch time to resume training on Monday morning,” said Raleigh.

But it doesn’t mean they’ll get Sunday morning off to go and have breakfast by the Yarra River – they’ll both swim the final heats in the morning, with McLoughlin swimming the 50m freestyle and Stubblety-Cook his favoured 200m breaststroke.]

You can rest assured Stubblety-Cook won’t miss an opportunity to pull out another good swim after taking the 50m (28.19)/100m (1:00.52) breaststroke double.

Those swims have come after Stubblety-Cook’s career best times the QLD State Swimming Championships in December where he clocked his Queensland State Open and All-Comers record of 2:07.28 in the 200m breaststroke and a personal best time of 59.83 – his first time under the minute and the fifth fastest time by an Australian in the 100m.

He will want to post a solid time before heading back to the grind and the next training block before heading to Sydney next month for the NSW State Championships and then the Sydney Open in May for the last hit out for most Olympic aspirants, before the Trials in Adelaide in June.

McLoughlin played the waiting game in 800m with emerging young New Zealander Zac Reid charging out of the blocks to lead through the first 400m.

But McLoughlin’s slow and steady stroke eventually saw him power past Reid through the 600m mark before the 400m Pan Pac champion pulled out the afterburners for the final 200m to record another impressive in work performance.

Twenty-year-old Reid was second in 7:59.01 with Olympic 400m champion Mack Horton (Melbourne Vicentre), who struggles to find his mojo in heavy training, third in 8:07.34.

There was no rest for the boys and they were soon back in the water for the 200m freestyle final, with McLoughlin again timing his finish to perfection to edge out last night’s 100m winner Cameron McEvoy (1:50.55) in a blanket finish with Malaysian Welson Sim (1:50.73) in third, followed by Horton (1:50.93) and another Kiwi, the leader

Cam McEvoy stretch

OUTSTRETCHED: Dual Olympian Cameron McEvoy stretched to the limit. Photo Courtesy: Martin Philbey Photography.

through the 100m, Daniel Hunter (1:51.69).

And in a real eye-catcher, visiting 16-year-old New Zealand prodigy and 2019 World Junior champion over 200m freestyle, Ericka Fairweather from Dunedin continued her record run, winning the women’s 400m freestyle in a canter, clocking 4:07.23.

The Kiwi teen sensation has been one of the rising stars of the Kiwi swimming, rising through the National Age ranks into last year’s World Championship team.

Her winning 400m freestyle time not only lowered her own New Zealand Age record of 4:08.58 (set just last month) to 4:07.23 (28.81; 59.74; 2:02.49; 3:05.58) but also established a new Victorian All-Comers record – beating the time of 4:09.23 set by Molly Batchelor in 2017. A time which would also have seen her ranked in the top 25 in the world last year.

Jess hansen medal

SMILES OF GOLD: Nunawading’s Jessica Hansen adds further gold in the 200m breaststroke.  Photo Courtesy: Martin Philbey Photography.

It was also a big night for leading Victorian club Nunawading with:

  • Jessica Hansen (2:27.87) and Zoe Deacon (2:28.88) recording a 1-2 quinella in the women’s 200m breaststroke; Hansen adding the title to her win in the 100m breaststroke.
  • Kayla Costa dipping under the minute to win the women’s 100m butterfly in 59.96.
  • Julia Hawkins super impressive swim in winning the 50m freestyle in 25.97 and;
  • The men’s 4x200m freestyle relay breaking Melbourne Vicentre’s 2016 Victorian Record in the 4x200m freestyle relay by just 0.30 to 7:26.69 (Brenden Smith 1:50.63; Matthew Temple 1:49.95; Bowen Gough 1:1:52.37; Elliot Rogerson 1:53.74) with the Women’s 4x200m freestyle also taking home the gold.
Nuna Relay record

RELAY RECORD: Elliot Rogerson anchors Nunawading to a new Victorian State Record in fhe 4x200m freestyle relay. Photo Courtesy: Martin Philbey Photography.

Not to be out-done visiting Sydney teenager Se-Bom Lee (Carlile, NSW) 2:01.98 kept local Victorian hopes Smith (Nunawading, VIC) 2:02.99 and David Schlicht (MLC Aquatic) 2:03.30 at bay in the men’s 200IM before adding his second title in the 2090m backstroke with another impressive swim of 2:00.32.

Former Victorian Hayley Baker (Canberra) added the 100m backstroke (1:01.40) to her 200m win last night.

While at the World Para Swimming World Series Yeronga Park’s Rowan Crothers (S10) took the men’s 50m freestyle crown, powering home in an impressive 23.86 (915pts) and under the qualifying time for Tokyo.

Chandler’s 2016 Paralympic champion Rachael Watson shone in the women’s 50m freestyle multi-class, clocking 39.75 and 865 points – also under the Tokyo qualifying time of 42.62.

Having won silver at the World Para Championships in London last September, the Paralympian pushed herself to the wall to triumph over USC Spartan’s Katja Dedekind (S13) (28.31, points 836) and Perth City’s Katherine Downie (S10) (29.13, points 829).

Dedekind 1:08.71 (877 points) won gold ahead of Knox Pymble’s Paralympic legend Ellie Cole (S9) and the USA’s Elizabeth Smith (S9).

The third and final day of both the Victorian State and World Para Series kicks off tomorrow with heats starting at 8:30am and finals taking place at 6pm. For more information and live results, click here

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Katie Davis
4 years ago

Susan Sellar

Carolyn McDonald
4 years ago

Great swims See Bom????

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