SWIMMING: It was billed as Super Saturday and night three of the 2016 Australian Swimming Championships certainly lived up to all expectations when seven more athletes swam qualifying times for Rio in front of a packed house at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Adelaide.

The men’s 200m freestyle headlined the show with Gold Coast London Olympians Tom Fraser-Holmes and Cam McEvoy bringing the house down with a thrilling deadhead in the 200m freestyle.

They were joined on the Rio nomination list by backstroke world champions Emily Seebohm and Mitch Larkin and newcomers Madison Wilson (100m backstroke) and Georgia Bohl and Taylor McKeown in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

Bohl was greeted by her proud coach and father Michael Bohl after clocking a personal best time of 1:06.12 to reach her Olympic dream as did second place-getter McKeown who overcame a groin injury to book her place in 1:06.68, also a personal best.

The St Peters Western Head coach has had a great start to the meet, coaching Emma McKeon, Maddie Groves, Larkin, Wilson and now his own daughter onto the team.

And in a classic 200m showdown it was McEvoy who used all his natural speed to take the race out over the first 100m in 50.64 with Fraser Holmes (50.90), Dan Smith (51.43) and David McKeon (51.80) trying desperately to hold on, knowing there were individual and relay spots up for grabs.

It’s the only way McEvoy knows how to swim and Fraser-Holmes stuck to him like glue and just when it seemed McEvoy might hang on with 25 metres to go the endurance of the seven-time 400m IM champion kicked in and the pair went stroke for stroke to the finish – dead-heating in 1:45.63.

McKeon, who had qualified for Rio in the 400m freestyle on night one, snuck into third in 1:46.61 and the comeback kid Smith realising a childhood dream to grab fourth in 1:46.87.

“I think we’d both agree we spent our pennies in the first three laps and I was hurting really bad that last 25 metres,” said Fraser-Holmes, the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion.

“It was a great race and it was great to be in that environment and that chaos so to speak again. I’m just so happy I re-qualified for the 200 again.

“It’s been a burning desire the last 12 months and almost every day I have been thinking about this race.

“I’ve got a great ability to focus when I don’t want to lose and I think I showed that tonight and although the time wasn’t super-fast tonight was just all about racing and getting a hand on the wall top two and we did that tonight!”

McEvoy was spent after the race but thrilled to share the spoils with a fellow Gold Coaster.

“Firstly, I’m really happy with that time, I haven’t been down to the mid 1:45 range for a while now so that’s really good and to do that with the hype of this competition is also very good as well,” said McEvoy.

“Who would have thought that we would have tied over 200 metres! But both our heats and semi-finals were virtually the same, give or take 0.1 or 0.2, so we’re basically inseparable really and that’s a great thing for our relay team!”

And it would not be a day in the swimming mixed zone, without a gem from the Griffith University Science student.

“It’s the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which is the theory of gravity. And coincidentally physicists at Advanced LIGO discovered gravitational waves, which is the stretching and contraction of space-time itself…

“That pulse on my cap is the actual detection signal that they detected when two super massive black holes collided and made space-time ripple.

“(Even though) I doubt my finish was strong enough to pretty much make ripples in the fabric of space-time.”

Larkin and Seebohm were dominant in the 100m backstroke finals, securing their spots on the team for Rio.

Backstroke girls in thriller

The women’s race was always going to be tough, with nothing separating Seebohm from her training partner Minna Atherton and St Peters Western’s Wilson. All three swam under the qualifying time, but with just two Olympic berths on offer, it was Seebohm and Wilson who prevailed.

“I am happy – I went faster from heats to semis to final - I did a tough job,” said Seebohm, who swam 58.73 to take the win.

“It was never going to be easy to make this team and it definitely wasn’t easy tonight but I guess I can show that my experience helps a lot.

“I was definitely nervous. I feel like it should get easier every time you come here but I swear I get more nervous every year. It was so nerve-wracking going into that. Being my 10th time around it is hard to keep improving at Australian Champs.”

Twenty-one-year-old Wilson will make her Olympic debut after she touched for second in 59.26.

“That was exciting,” Wilson said.

“I still haven’t got my head around the fact that I am going to go to the Olympics.

“That race was always going to be tough. We have such good depth, I think we had five under the minute, which is huge.

“I don’t even think the US can do that. It is really exciting for backstroke in Australia.”

Larkin was swimming on world record pace for much of the two-lap race, and finished first in 52.54, just 0.04 off the time that won him last year’s world title in Kazan.

“My first goal was to come here and qualify for Rio so I’ve done that,” Larkin said.

“Kazan was in August so we’ve got a few months of work in there [until Rio] so I’ll go home and do some work and look forward to swimming faster. When you freshen up and shave down you do want to swim PBs but like I said the main goal was to come here and book my ticket to Rio so we’ll see what can happen from there.”

Larkin will now work with his coach to come up with a plan for the months leading into Rio, to decide whether taking the approach of lots of international racing as he did in 2015 could work for him again.

“If I can race as much as I can, internationally, then I would love to do that for sure. There are two types of fitness – training fitness and racing fitness. I’ll look to try and probably race a few meets between here and Rio and work on that.”

Larkin was the only Aussie to grab an Olympic quota place in the race with second place getter Joshua Beaver just missing the Olympic qualifying time, clocking 53.77. Ashley Delaney (54.29) was third.

AUSTRALIAN SWIM TEAM