Brisbane Senior Metropolitan Championships: Meg Harris Takes Head-To-Head 100m Free Battle over Cate Campbell in 53.17
The race to Paris in Australia hotted up in Brisbane this morning with two of Australia’s red-shot female freestyle sprinters Meg Harris (Rackley) and Cate Campbell (Chandler) going head-to-head over 100m freestyle at the 2023 Vorgee Brisbane Metropolitan Championships, which has attracted a host of Olympic hopefuls.
And it’s not every day you break a Cate Campbell record let alone twice in two sessions while also keeping the four-time Olympian, former world champion and world record holder at bay at the same time.
GOLDEN GIRLS: Meg Harris, Emma McKeon and Bronte Campbell celebrate their gold medal win during the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Photo Courtesy: Robert Hanashiro — USA Today Sports.
But Campbell’s fellow Tokyo Olympic freestyle relay gold medallist Harris, also a big Paris chance, has done just that, winning the 100m freestyle final in 53.17 at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre.
In a reverse order of sessions, the preliminaries were swum last night and the finals this morning – Harris clocking 53.31 to Campbell’s 53.51 in the preliminaries – breaking Campbell’s 2013 Brisbane mark of 53.33.
And then lowering her own record to the 53.17 (her second fastest time of the season) – ahead of Campbell’s 53.42 today in the countdown to the most hotly contested of any event at the Australian Trials in June.
Here is what the current Australian Top Ten 2023-24 season times look like in the women’s 100m freestyle:
- 52.76 Shayna Jack (2023 QLD Championships)
- 53.00 Emma McKeon (2024 Victorian State Championships)
- 53.03 Meg Harris (2023 QLD Championships)
- 53.23 Cate Campbell 2023 QLD Championships)
- 53.27 Mollie O’Callaghan (2023 QLD Championships)
- 53.30 Bronte Campbell (2024 SA State Championships)
- 53.97 Olivia Wunsch (2023 NSW Senior State Age)
- 54.11 Milla Jansen (2023 QLD Championships)
- 54.29 Brianna Throssell (2024 World Aquatics, Doha)
- 54.35 Kaylee McKeown (2024 Victorian State Championships)
Remembering McKeon is the reigning Olympic champion, O’Callaghan the 2023 World Champion, Cate Campbell the 2013 World Champion and Bronte Campbell in 2015 world champion and Wunsch the 2022 World Junior Champion.
19 & Over 100 LC Metre Freestyle
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Brisbane: # 53.33 17/03/2013Cate Campbell, INDOO
Name Age Team Prelims Finals
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1 Harris, Meg 22 Rackley ST 53.31 53.17#
r:+0.70 25.86 53.17 (27.31)
2 Campbell, Cate 31 Chandler 53.51 53.42
r:+0.77 25.59 53.42 (27.83)
3 Price, Lily 21 Rackley ST 55.93 56.06
r:+0.71 27.14 56.06 (28.92)
Harris, the 2022 World’s 50m bronze medallist and 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, later added the 50m freestyle Timed Final, without Campbell, in a time of 24.72 and the 200m in 1:58.24
Another eye-catching swim came from Harris’s Rackley team-mate, 2023 world champion Sam Short who returned to racing with a new Brisbane record of 3:45.17 to take out the 400m freestyle ahead of record holder and club mate Thomas Neill (3:51.43). Neill set the record of 3:50.69 in 2020. Short clocked one did the fastest times in history with his 3:40.68 to win the World’s last year and 3:44.20 to claim the 2023 Queensland title while 2022 world champion and fellow Australian Elijah Winnington took silver at the Doh World’s this year in 3:42.86.
Short also added the 800m in 7:48.73 (out in 27.14 before swimming the next 15 x50s between 29.06 and 29.78) after finishing second to club mate Neill in the 200m – 1:48.11 and 1:48.27 – all encouraging swims in the countdown to Trials.
Men 19 & Over 400 LC Metre Freestyle
1 Short, Samuel 20 Rackley ST 3:40.68 3:45.17#
r:+0.66 26.21 54.18 (27.97)
1:22.41 (28.23) 1:50.90 (28.49)
2:19.82 (28.92) 2:48.44 (28.62)
3:17.25 (28.81) 3:45.17 (27.92)
Men 19 & Over 200 LC Metre Freestyle
1 Neill, Thomas 21 Rackley ST 1:45.78 1:48.11#
r:+0.67 25.68 52.73 (27.05)
1:20.57 (27.84) 1:48.11 (27.54)
2 Short, Samuel 20 Rackley ST 1:47.05 1:48.27#
r:+0.64 26.02 53.37 (27.35)
WORLD CHAMPION: Sam Short (Australia) claims the 400m freestyle in 2023. Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto.
Meanwhile in other events, Olympic champion over 200m breaststroke, Zac Stubblety-Cook, limed up in the 100m breaststroke – clocking and encouraging 59.97 – under the long-standing Brisbane record, of 1:00.15 and set back in 2008 by 2012 Olympic silver medallist Christian Sprenger.
Stubblety-Cook’s time makes him the second fastest Australian this season behind 2024 Doha World Championship fourth-place getter, Sam Williamson’s 59.21.
While in the women’s 100m butterfly, 21-year-old Paris Olympic hopeful Lily Price (Rackley) produced a personal best of 57.64 in the women’s 100m freestyle – clocking the equal ninth fastest all-time performance by an Australian.
Today’s final win came after she broke a long-standing Libby Trickett record set back in 2008, clocking 57.91 in the preliminaries – just outside her personal best of 57.78, swum when she finished third to Emma McKeon and Brianna Throssell at last year’s Australian Trials.
Price has now swum the fourth fastest time off the season behind McKeon (56.40), Throssell (56.97) and Lizzy Dekkers (58.38) in an event that is also shaping up to be one to watch at the June Trials.
The men’s 100m freestyle went to 18-year-old Ed Sommerville (Brisbane Grammar) in 49.50 – under Isaac Cooper’s 2202 Brisbane record of 50.33 while the women’s 100m breaststroke went to Ella Ramsay (Chandler) 1:08.01.
In the Timed Final of the women’s 800m freestyle Rackley’s 18-year-old Tiana Kritzinger, clocked an impressive personal best of 8:35.75 (4:15.87) ahead of Yeronga Park’s duel Olympic open water swimmer (Rio and Paris) Chelsea Gubecka (8:45.83) with Amelia Weber (St Peters Western) third in 8:55.13.