Preliminary rounds of day seven of the 2011 Telstra Australian Swimming Championship
Morning session of day seven of the 2011 Telstra Australian Swimming Championships features the preliminary rounds of the four events for Men and Women on Thursday in Sydney. The session will scrutinise the competent swimmers to enter the Australian Swimming
team to compete at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai this July.
The session included the heats of the Women’s 50m freestyle, Men’s 50m backstroke, Women’s 50m breast-stroke and the Men’s 1500m freestyle.
The day started with the Women’s 50m freestyle, where the gold medallist for the Women’s 100m freestyle Alicia Coutts qualified into the semi-finals as the fifth fastest swimmer. Olivia Halicek appeared as the fastest swimmer to qualify for tonight’s semi-final
touching the wall in a time of 25.20 seconds. She was followed by Indooroopilly’s Bronte Campbell and Cate Campbell in a time of 25.24 and 25.39 seconds respectively.
The silver medallist for the 100m freestyle Yolane Kukla emerged as the fourth fastest swimmer to qualify for the semi-finals, clocking a time of 25.41 that was slightly ahead of Coutts’s 25.46 seconds. The event is considered to provide a great show to
the arena as the top 16 qualifying swimmers have a time between 25.19 and 25.98 seconds.
Whereas, in the Men’s 50m backstroke preliminary rounds, the gold medallist for the 200m backstroke Nunawading’s Ashley Delaney proved his fastest qualification into today’s semi-final by clocking a time of 25.96 seconds. Delaney’s timing placed him 0.13
seconds ahead from Unattached’s Hayden Stoeckel, who qualified as the second fastest swimmer in a time of 26.09 second. Acacia Bayside’s Andre Gillespie secured the third fastest qualification spot with a timing of 26.26 seconds and was marginally away from
the Melbourne’s Da Blackborrow, who touched the wall fourth in a time of 26.32 seconds.
In the Women’s 50m breast-stroke, Southport’s Leiston Pickett out touched the Australia’s great breast-stroke swimmer Leisel Jones, clocking a time of 31.44 seconds in contrast to her 31.55 seconds. Melbourne’s Natasha Waitzer was identified as the third
fastest swimmer to qualify into the semi-finals after she posted a deserving 31.78 seconds.
The last event of the morning session was the Men’s 1500m freestyle, where the Lawnton Swim’s Trent Grimsey posted 15:28.79 minutes to occupy the fastest qualification spot into the tonight’s semi-final. Grimsey was comfortably away from Wally Eggleton,
who engaged Trent in a neck-to-neck swim throughout the race, but failed to sustain his speed in the final lap, clocking a 15:29.75 minutes for his second fastest qualification. City of Perth’s Travis Nederpelt achieved the third fastest qualification spot
in a time of 15:31.74 minutes.
The semi-finals of the same events will be conducted in today’s second session where the top eight swimmers will qualify for the final round to confirm their spots for Shanghai.
Tags: