Budapest 2024: Young Australian Men Have Golden Opportunities
At the most recent Short Course World Championships, Australia’s Isaac Cooper believed he had captured his first world title in front of partisan fans in Melbourne, but the entire field was forced to re-swim the race after a false start. And in that re-swim, Cooper finished nine hundredths behind American veteran Ryan Murphy, who went on to complete the sweep of the backstroke events.
Cooper was a little-known 18-year-old at that point, but two years later, Cooper arrives in Budapest favored to win that title outright, and a pair of 200 freestyle specialists, Max Giuliani and Ed Sommerville, will also be in position to score breakout medals this week.
In Cooper’s case, a 50 back win would be his second world title this year after previously capturing the long course title in Doha in February by two tenths over defending champion Hunter Armstrong. Since then, Cooper qualified for his first Olympics, although his impact was limited with his preferred event not on the Olympic racing schedule. He tied for 21st in the 100 back prelims and helped the Australian men finish sixth in the 400 medley relay.
A busy schedule of events for Cooper at his second Short Course Worlds will also include the 100 back, 50 free and 50 butterfly plus relay action, but he will be in position to put a firm stamp on the 50 back, where he is seeded first by two tenths over Russian teenager Miron Lifintsev.
Max Giuliani — Photo Courtesy: Wade Brennan Photography
Meanwhile, the Aussies will try to put on a show in the 800 free relay prior to Giuliani and Sommerville racing individually in the 200 free on the final day of competition. The 21-year-old Giuliani is the veteran of the group, having won the event at Australia’s Olympic Trials in June and racing to a seventh-place finish in the Paris final. One day later, he led off Australia’s 800 free relay that ended up with a strong bronze medal, finishing less than a second behind the silver-medal-winning Americans.
Sommerville, 19, is the newcomer to senior-level international racing, having missed Australia’s selection meet for Paris because of a dislocated shoulder. But by the Australian Short Course Championships late September, he had recovered sufficiently to post a time of 1:40.64 in the 200 free, beating his previous best time by an astounding four seconds and taking down a nine-year-old national record held by Cameron McEvoy.
Entering the meet, Sommerville is the top seed in the event and the only swimmer in the field who has cracked 1:41 within the qualifying period. And Australia could end up with two medals in the event, with Giuliani the third-ranked entrant behind Sommerville and Lithuania’s Danas Rapsys. There will be plenty of talent in the field, with Olympic bronze medalist Luke Hobson and 400 free Olympic champion Lukas Martens looming further down in the rankings with long course entry times, so any medals here for the Aussies would be well-earned.
In Budapest, most of Australia’s most decorated active male swimmers will be missing, with McEvoy, Kyle Chalmers and Sam Short among those not in attendance. Veterans Elijah Winnington and Matt Temple will head up the men’s team this time, but these younger swimmers will have chances to establish themselves at the start of this new quadrennium and build momentum to carry into 2025.