By Stehen J. Thomas<\/p>\n
SYDNEY, March 27. OLYMPIC bronze medalist Justin Norris built his race to perfection producing a powerful second half to get on top of his younger rival Adam Lucas in the final lap of the 400 IM at the Australian Olympic Trials. Norris dropped just over a second off his previous best to touch in 4:15.20 \u2013 a new Commonwealth and Australian record \u2013 previously held by Canadian Curtis Myden, set at the 2000 Olympics. <\/p>\n
Eighteen-year-old West Aussie Travis Nederpelt slashed over four seconds off his PR to follow Norris past Lucas and take the silver and most importantly, a place on the team to Athens. Nederpelt touched in 4:16.46 (3rd fastest Aussie performer) with Lucas also a PR – 4:18.02 (5th Aussie performer). For Norris, 23, it was a great return to form after a period of transition since his previous coach Mark Regan departed to work in Denmark. Norris has been working with AIS head coach Pierre La Fontaine for just over 12 months. <\/p>\n
Men\u2019s 400 Freestyle:<\/b>
\nWith no Ian Thorpe this time round after the drama of his prelim DQ this morning, Grant Hackett had the race to himself splitting: 53.71, 1:50.45, 2:46.94 to record an excellent 3:43.35 – his second fastest time over the distance – and just 0.84 outside his PR set at the 2001 Worlds. This is the second time Hackett has won this event having beaten a 14-year-old Ian Thorpe in 1997 while Thorpe had since ruled for the past six titles. AIS based Craig Stevens swam himself into his first Olympic team clocking 3:48.08 (just outside his PR 3:47.99) from AIS team-mate Josh Krogh (3:51.77). <\/p>\n
Women\u2019s 400IM:<\/b>
\nSydney Olympian Jen Reilly trimmed her own Aussie record by 0.13 when she powered away in the freestyle leg to win her sixth consecutive title in 4:40.71 from fellow West Aussie and outstanding prospect 17-year-old Lara Carroll who dropped three second off her PR to clock an impressive 4:42.35 (3rd all-time Aussie). Jessica Abbott took the bronze in 4:48.94.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Stehen J. Thomas SYDNEY, March 27. OLYMPIC bronze medalist Justin Norris built his race to perfection producing a powerful second half to get on top of his younger rival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71045,"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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n