Mollie O’Callaghan has set the fastest time in the world this year to show she has every chance of defending her 100m freestyle title in Fukuoka but it won’t be in a field containing veteran Cate Campbell.
O’Callaghan just touched out training partner Shayna Jack to win a world-class 100m freestyle at the national titles on the Gold Coast, the pair becoming the first women in the world to break the 53sec barrier this year.
Jack led the field through the opening 50m but O’Callaghan motored home from fourth place at the turn to touch first in 52.63, just ahead of her St Peter’s Western training partner Jack in 52.64, ahead of Olympic champion Emma McKeon (53.22), Meg Harris (53.46) and Madi Wilson (53.78), with Campbell fading to finish equal fifth with Wilson after turning in second place.
Campbell’s comeback is only in its infancy but she has already declared she will be a non-starter in Fukuoka regardless of how she performs at the world championship trials in June.
Next year’s Paris Olympics – and competing at a fifth Games – is her only aim.
“Paris is the end goal,” Campbell said.
“I’m doing everything in my power to be fit and ready to perform at my absolute best because it will be the last time I get in a swimming pool.
“I have this deep sense of knowing that working towards Paris is going to be the last time that I put together an Olympic preparation, that I will compete my country if I qualify.
“The focus has very much shifted to ensuring that I’m at my absolute best for that.”
Campbell will head to Europe next month to compete on the Mare Nostrum tour before returning to Australia and racing at trials but will knuckle down and complete another training block in Brisbane with coach Damien Jones regardless of her results there.
It’s a position Campbell regards as a privilege and one she knows champions before her have not been afforded.
“Swimming Australia has been nothing but supportive of this,” Campbell said of skipping the benchmark meet leading into the Games.
“It almost makes me a bit emotional thinking of where I started in this sport 15 years ago and you had to every year, stand up and prove your worth and you were only valued for what you did in the pool.
“I’m so grateful to Swimming Australia for how supportive they’ve been of me taking the time off, for their continued support of me coming back.
“They’ve allowed me to figure out what I think is best for myself and have recognised the contribution that I’ve made over many, many years.
“If I was doing this 15 years ago, I would have had to have left the sport.
“You wouldn’t see athletes be able to take time off and come back – and so I feel that incredible privilege of getting to come back and getting to be around the sport for one last time.”
O’Callaghan admitted there was more pressure after winning the world title last year.
“I’m definitely growing in confidence but there’s a lot more pressure now, there are high expectations to hit that constantly,” she said.
“Coming here, I was thinking, I don’t care if I come first, last, as long as I execute Dean’s race plan.
“We’re still in prep for trials and worlds this year. I can learn from these little things and keep making improvements.”
Informed it was the leading time in the world this year, O’Callaghan was typically modest, more thrilled for Jack than for herself.
“That’s amazing, especially to do it with Shayna too.
“I have so much respect for her and I absolutely adore her too. She’s been through a lot too, so it’s nice to see her get her time and in a way, a revenge,” she said of Jack, who spent time out of the pool for a drug ban eventually halved after it was ruled she did not ingest the substance intentionally.
O’Callaghan said she had some regret at not pushing the front end of her swim more.
“I just hope that that was good enough and what Dean (Boxall) was asking me, I executed it,” she said.
“But I do love a good back end and I get a little bit too comfortable with that sometimes.
“Now I think it’s time to start working on other things and fixing other things but also focussing on that.”
In other results, Sam Short beat world champion Elijah Winnington and set the fastest time in the world this year to win the 400m freestyle in 3:42.46.
Short, who only narrowly missed the Olympic team for Tokyo, became the 10th fastest swimmer in history over the distance, knocking Aussie distance great Grant Hackett out of the top 10.
Olympic 200m and 400m champion Ariarne Titmus won the 800m freestyle in 8:20.19.
Titmus, whose preparation was disrupted by a virus, said she would have preferred to break the 8:20 barrier but said she would take the result.
“I don’t like to make excuses, it’s just life to get sick,” she said.
Kaylee McKeown won the 200m individual medley in 2:08.16, a new Australian allcomers record and the third-fastest in the world this year behind Canadian star Summer McIntosh.
But having to back up in the 100m freestyle final less than an hour later, McKeown left a little petrol in the tank for the blue riband event.
Olympic gold medallist Zac Stubblety-Cook won the men’s 100m breaststroke in 1:00.07, just failing to dip under the minute in the two-lap event despite mowing down the field on the way home.
One of the biggest swims of the night came from Bond University’s Ben Armbruster, who set an Australian allcomers record in the 50m butterfly, hitting the wall in 23.05, the second-fastest time in the world this year.
The 20-year-old became the second-fastest Australian of all time in the event, now only sitting behind Olympian Matt Target in the record books.
FOMO DRIVING TITMUS TO OLYMPIC GREATNESS
World short course queen Lani Pallister expects distance rival Ariarne Titmus to be “on point” at the national championships this week despite the fact she’s likely to be racing untapered.
Australia’s best swimmers will take part in the four-day meet on the Gold Coast from Monday, with the event now forming part of the selection for this year’s world championships despite it not being the main trials.
Regardless of any turmoil behind the scenes – Swimming Australia CEO Eugenie Buckley quit unexpectedly last week, reportedly in the wake of an explosive report into how the sport was being run – the focus will be back in the pool in a move that will have officials breathing a sigh of relief.
Much of that focus will be on Pallister and Titmus and what are likely to be world class battles over the 400m and 800m despite both remaining in training.
“More than anything, it’s an opportunity to get up and race,” Pallister said.
“I don’t think we’re going into it fresh by any means, so to be able to put together the race plan that we have been doing in training while still being under a pretty heavy load is something that our squad, especially, is looking into.”
Pallister won gold in the 400m, 800m and 1500m at the world short course titles in Melbourne, with Titmus sitting out the event after taking a post-Olympic break.
But she said she was not heading into the meet with the expectation of winning.
“I don’t go into events looking for gold medals,” the 20-year-old said.
“It’s something really nice that comes with it and the accolades that follow when you do race well and do execute it all properly.
“But Ariarne Titmus is one of the greatest distance swimmers of all time – and in Australian history – so I know she’s going to be absolutely on point at this event as well.”
While she still in training, Titmus is likely to want to lay down a marker in the 400m freestyle in particular given she lost her world record to rising Canadian star Summer McIntosh late last month.
Speaking at a Dolphins training camp before McIntosh’s record-breaking efforts, Titmus said watching the young gun and distance legend Katie Ledecky go head-to-head at events had given her “a little bit of FOMO” but she had her own plan ahead of next year’s Paris Olympics.
And while McIntosh’s record would likely have given her a jolt, she said she needed no extra impetus to return to the top of the mountain again.
“I’ve got enough motivation within myself to get back to that level,” Titmus said of whether McIntosh and Ledecky were driving her.
“(Last year) was a very busy year for me, but (2023) is … very different. I think that my mindset completely switches to Paris.
“I can look at other people’s swimming and that adds motivation but I think I’ve got enough motivation within myself and wanting that self-satisfaction and self-gratification to see what I can do, to try and be better.”
Pallister also knows she won’t have things all her own way chasing the master.
While not the trials – a top-two finish will be needed in Melbourne in June to win a place on the Australian team for the world championships in Fukuoka the following month – Pallister will want to make a statement on the Gold Coast given the competition she is likely to face at trials.
“Kiah Melverton, Maddy Gough, I know a lot of those guys in the open water events have just come back from a super successful World Cup, so I don’t think it will be easy by any means but I’m happy to throw my hat into the ring and see what happens by the end of next week,” she said.
The senior representative will be joined by some of Australia’s best rising stars, who will follow the past week’s action at the Australian Age Championships by rolling into the open meet at the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre.
Among them will be sprint sensation Flynn Southam, who on Saturday night added the 100m freestyle to his tally, dipping under the 49sec barrier to collect the 17 years gold in 48.91.
Southam will line up against the likes of Kyle Chalmers, Cameron McEvoy and William Yang in the blue riband event.
