It was a stormy start to the 2016 Victorian Open Championships with racing delayed due to lightning strikes this morning at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.<\/p>\n
Once the competition commenced, all eyes were on the men\u2019s 100m freestyle as former world champion James Magnussen<\/strong> made his much anticipated return to racing.<\/p>\n Magnussen swam a controlled heat, stopping the clock at 50.05 to move through as fastest qualifier for the final tonight<\/span>.<\/p>\n The Ravenswood swimmer said he will be looking to improve on a few things for tonight<\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt a bit rusty, but that is the first time I have raced in nine months<\/span> so I wasn\u2019t sure how it was going to feel. I\u2019m looking forward to getting a few more things right tonight<\/span>,\u201d Magnussen said.<\/p>\n Trinity Grammar swimmer Kenneth To<\/strong> posted the second fastest time form this morning\u2019s heats with a 50.15 with up and comer Blake Jones<\/strong> (Southport, 50.26) and World Championships representative Dan Smith<\/strong> (Miami, 50.25) joining them in the final.<\/p>\n In finals action tonight<\/span>\u2026<\/u><\/p>\n In the corresponding women\u2019s event, keep an eye on Emma McKeon<\/strong> who cruised through to the 100m freestyle final in top spot with a 54.70 ahead of her fellow training partners Bronte Barratt<\/strong> (St Peters Western, 55.45) and\u00a0Madeline Groves<\/strong> (St Peters Western, 55.57).<\/p>\n McKeon (26.48) and Groves (26.67) will then back up for the women\u2019s 50m butterfly final with third fastest qualifier, Olympian Alicia Coutts<\/strong> also racing the freestyle\/fly double tonight<\/span>.<\/p>\n Coutts was fifth fastest for the 100m freestyle final (56.04) and snuck into the top three for the 50m butterfly with her time of 27.12.<\/p>\n Melbourne local Mack Horton<\/strong> also had his first hit out of the New Year and impressed in his heat to progress as the one to beat for the men\u2019s 400m freestyle in a time of 3:49.87. Expect a competitive final tonight<\/span> as David McKeon<\/strong>(Chandler, 3:52.55) and Canada\u2019s Ryan Cochrane<\/strong> (3:53.80) round out the top three.<\/p>\n The backstroke boys will also be in action tonight<\/span> in the splash and dash 50m final. The man of the moment Mitch Larkin<\/strong> (St Peters Western, 25.39) will swim from lane four with World Championship bronze medallist in this event\u00a0Ben Treffers<\/strong> (Burley Griffin, 25.56) and world championship representative Josh Beaver<\/strong> (Nunawading, 25.69) both hot on his heels.<\/p>\n Swimming Australia contributed this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a stormy start to the 2016 Victorian Open Championships with racing delayed due to lightning strikes this morning at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre. Once the competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[56448,25342],"class_list":["post-179320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-2016-victorian-open-championships","tag-james-magnussen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n