By Stephen J Thomas<\/p>\n
SYDNEY, Australia, March 28. FOUR-TIME Olympic medalist Petria Thomas booked her seat on the plane to Athens for her third Olympic Games when she produced another powerful swim in the 100 fly trimming 0.03 of a second off her prelim time last night to touch in 57.36. <\/p>\n
The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)-based Thomas, who finished 4th in this event at the Sydney Olympics, turned in 27.06, well in advance of Queenslanders Libby Lenton (27.60) and Jessicah Schipper (27.60). It was the 17-year-old Schipper, coached by the vastly experienced Ken Wood that came home over the top of the more favoured Lenton to take second in a PR 59.19 to Lenton's 59.34. Lenton would certainly be disappointed with her race after clocking a very impressive 58.20 in the semifinal – the second fastest Aussie performer all-time ahead of the great Susie O'Neill. <\/p>\n
Women\u2019s 400 Freestyle:
\nLinda Mackenzie, the 163cm pocket-rocket from North Queensland but now training at the AIS in Canberra, produced an eye-catching swim to defeat Elka Graham a world champs finalist and winner of this event for the past two years. Mackenzie has been showing signs of the potential to step-up a gear this year with several good swims while under a tough work program from coach Pierre La Fontaine. <\/p>\n
The 20-year-old Mackenzie certainly produced the goods tonight, just trailing the earlier leader Kasey Giteau to the 150-mark where she took off leaving Graham with much to do at the 200-mark (2:04.86 to 2:06.20). Graham usually produces a strong second half but Mackenzie was up to the challenge finishing in a PR 4:09.23 – almost three seconds under the 4:12.16 she swam behind Graham at this meet last year to make the World Champs team \u2013 and moving her to 5th Aussie all-time performer. Graham finished in 4:11.26 to also qualify for her first individual event in an Olympics \u2013 she was selected on the 2000 team as a relay swimmer. Another Pierre La Fontaine coached swimmer, distance specialist Sarah Paton, took third in a PR 4:13.63.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s 50 Backstroke:
\nGiaan Rooney easily took her second consecutive title in this event just 0.02 of a second outside the Commonwealth and National record she set in the prelims yesterday hitting the wall in 28.53 well in front of her Melbourne Vicentre team-mates Amy Cockerton (29.62) and Rachel Goh (30.03). Sophie Edington, Marieke Guehrer and Belinda Nevell skipped the final of this non-Olympic event to conserve energy for the 100 backstroke swum just 20-minutes later.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s 100 Breaststroke:
\nJim Piper, the Aussie record-holder over four laps tonight went just 0.01 of a second short of Brenton Rickard\u2019s national standard for this distance when he produced a strong second final lap to record a convincing win in a PR 1:01.38. Piper had turned in 28.81, behind Brenton Rickard (28.25) and Mark Riley (28.60) with the Sydney Olympian Regan Harrison back in 5th place. At the wall though it was Harrison, a noted 200 swimmer, that powered home to take second in a PR 1:01.93 over Riley (PR 1:02.05) and Rickard (1:02.39). <\/p>\n
Men\u2019s 50 Butterfly:
\nAfter a slow start, Geoff Huegill gathered up Matt Welsh under the flags to win his eighth consecutive national title in this event, clocking 23.83 (prelim 23.77). Welsh touched in 24.17 with David Carter third in 24.22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Stephen J Thomas SYDNEY, Australia, March 28. FOUR-TIME Olympic medalist Petria Thomas booked her seat on the plane to Athens for her third Olympic Games when she produced another<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71058,"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-7077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n