SWIMMING: London Olympians Mitch Larkin and Jessica Ashwood have continued Australia’s record-breaking start to the 16th FINA World Championships in Kazan.
After winning Australia’s 100th women’s world championship medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay last night, the momentum continued to build into this morning’s heats session with all nine of the Dolphins heat swimmers progressing into their respective finals and semi-finals.
Larkin, who won the World Short Course Championship in Doha last year, engineered a perfect start to his campaign, smashing the Oceania, Commonwealth and Australian records in the heats of the 100m backstroke.
Then later in the morning Ashwood set her second Australian record in two days, adding the 1500m freestyle National mark to her bronze medal winning 400m freestyle also in Australian record time.
Larkin, the 22-year-old QUT engineering student goes into tonight’s semi-finals as the fastest qualifier after clocking a time of 52.50 – the 10th fastest time in history.
But he also knows that four swimmers in tonight’s semi-finals Matt Grevers (USA), Rosuke Irie (Japan), Jyaiu Xu (China) and Camille Lacourt (France) have all swum faster.
“When I looked at the scoreboard, I thought I saw 53.50 but then when I refocused my eyesight I realised it was in fact 52.50 and thought ‘nice...I’ll take that,” said the London Olympic 200m backstroke finalist.
Only three other swimmers, including Australia’s dual Olympian Matt Welsh have won both world long course and short course 100m backstroke golds; Welsh (Long Course in 2001 and Short Course in 2002); the USA’s Aaron Peirsol (Long Course in 2003, 2005 and 2007 and Short Course 2004) and the USA’s defending champion Matt Grevers (Long Course 2013 and Short Course 2012).
Australia will have two swimmers in the 100m backstroke semis with the AIS based Ben Treffers qualifying 10th in 54.00.
Not letting the limelight linger on the men for too long, Ashwood lowered her own Australian Record in the women’s 1500m freestyle with a time of 15:56.52.
The 22-year-old finished second in her heat behind the USA’s powerhouse Katie Ledecky who set a new world record time of 15:27.71 to move through as top qualifier for the final tomorrow night with Denmark’s Lottle Friis (15:54.23) sneaking into second place.
“Vince and I have trained to back up and doing back-to-back sessions has become second nature,” said Ashwood.
“But I’m really looking forward to having two sessions off before the final.”
In the men’s 200m freestyle Australia will have two qualifiers into tonight’s semi-finals with Australian champion Cameron McEvoy (1:46.39) qualifying fourth and David McKeon (1:47.00) qualifying 10th and bouncing back after the disappointment of missing out on the 400m freestyle final yesterday.
The bar was set high from the opening events with the backstrokers Emily Seebohm (59.04) and Madi Wilson (59.17) winning their heats comfortably to qualify for the women’s 100m back semi-finals in seconde and third.
The pair, who just yesterday were both a part of the gold medal winning 4x100m freestyle relay team, turned over onto their backs this morning to show off their speed and versatility.
Seebohm will move through as second fastest qualifier and Wilson third after Hungarian Katinka Hosszu, not one to hold back, blitzed through her heat in a time of 58.78.
After a few narrow misses in the heats yesterday the team was leaving nothing to chance this morning and Seebohm explained the theory behind their renewed enthusiasm.
“As a team we’ve been talking about treating every day as day one and that’s what I did today and what I’ll do for the rest of the meet. Every day you prepare for your events like it’s the beginning of the meet and you maintain that enthusiasm and respect for the competition,” Seebohm said.
Both girls will be looking to pick the speed up again tonight with six of the semi-finalists clocking sub 1-minute times.
Meanwhile University of Sunshine Coast’s Commonwealth Games gold medallist in the 200m breaststroke, Taylor McKeown followed in the footsteps of her training partner Jake Packard in the heats of the women's 100 breaststroke, clocking a personal best time of 1:06.97 to qualify seventh fastest for the semi-finals.
With Packard taking in the men’s final tonight, McKeown will be looking to continue their squad’s run of success and finish inside the top eight. Also looking for that elusive final swim will be Lorna Tonks who impressed this morning with a 1:07.32 to move through in 12th place for the semi-finals.
The finals will start tonight from 5:30pm local time at the Kazan Arena and will be broadcast LIVE on 7TWO and at 7swimming.com.au from 12 midnight.
SWIMMING AUSTRALIA